Opinion: Too Many Commercials in Football
As we progress deeper into the college and NFL seasons something has become abundantly clear to me: there are way too many commercials in football. It’s apparent when you’re at home watching the game, but not as obvious as when you’re at a game in-person. When you’re at home, you can get off the couch, run to the bathroom, grab a drink and be back and feel like you had plenty of time. When you’re at home, you can check Twitter (not calling it X), see how your fantasy team is doing, and maybe flip to another game in the interim. When you’re at home, you have options.
I was at the Maryland/Virginia game this past Friday night and the breaks were almost as painful as my jaw reconstruction. A niche reference I know, but imagine having your jaw purposefully broken, then widened and pushed back; the amount of commercial breaks I went through in the stands was close to that level. Don’t get me wrong, part of the pain is that Maryland has bleachers with no back supports as seats, which should be outlawed, but it was exacerbated by how long the game was taking. We’re all about creating the most viewer-friendly product to keep fans engaged, but this is going to develop into a serious problem with fans going to game in-person if it continues.
Here are a couple solutions that can really cut down on excessive commercial time:
- Stop going to commercial after each kickoff – We just went to commercial because of a touchdown or field goal. I don’t need to come back from break, watch a touchback and go back to watching Flo from progressive annoy the crap out of me even more.
- Stop going to commercial after punts – your offense has been on the sideline for long enough, they should be prepped and ready for their next drive as soon as you get the ball back.
- Cut down commercial time – Three minutes adds up. Fast. Cut it in half, or make it 2 minutes and it will make a world of difference, I promise.
- At least have a variety of commercials – repeating a commercial during a game should be illegal. It’s annoying and makes me want to utilize that company’s product less and less. It’s counterintuitive and a waste of air time.
- Get rid of car insurance commercials – I don’t need Flo, Jamie, the Geico Gecko or the Allstate Mayhem guy shoved down my throat 50000 times. This is something I believe in for TV as a whole, but definitely for football season.
We got rid of stopping the clock for first downs in college football to speed up the game. We need to do the same with commercials. Leagues and conferences make plenty off ad dollars, they’ll be ok if they cut back a little.
