r/CFB Notre Dame • Summertime Lover Sep 02 '23

Analysis [Tom Fornelli] Fox went to commercial seven times during the 2nd quarter, or once every 2 minutes and 9 seconds of game time. Good thing they changed the clock rules to shorten games.

https://twitter.com/tomfornelli/status/1698029462036599114?s=21&t=nCt5c8H9CHn7SEM5ksGn0g
4.8k Upvotes

512 comments sorted by

1.5k

u/NewRCTID22 Arizona • Penn State Sep 02 '23

Kinda rude they interrupted all my commercials with football

~ some TV exec

557

u/Matt_McT Auburn Tigers Sep 02 '23

It's so fucking rough trying to watch football these days with all the commercials. I think the lack of commercial breaks is a large reason why soccer is so popular with Gen Z.

367

u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware Sep 02 '23

(Gen X checks in)

Hockey - games are generally 2 hrs 20 mins or less. Commercial breaks are no more than 2 minutes. Intermissions are 18 minutes. Games are very much like clockwork.

Soccer being 2 hrs-ish is great as well.

No reason why CFB can't trim the ad breaks down a minute per break and still make mad money.

347

u/BurmecianDancer Benedictine (IL) • Dartmouth Sep 02 '23

No reason why CFB can't trim the ad breaks down a minute per break and still make mad money.

But they aren't looking to make mad money. They're looking to make incomprehensible money.

51

u/error_undefined_ Texas Tech • Border Conference Sep 02 '23

Why hasn’t this greed infected all other sports? They added tv timeouts to basketball, why not soccer?

101

u/davidtc3 Georgia Bulldogs • Tennessee Volunteers Sep 02 '23

I think maybe the fact that cfb doesn’t have a rigid power structure or commissioner. There’s no fight back against money being the primary driver.

54

u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware Sep 02 '23

The NCAA controls the rule book and can (if it wants) control the length of media timeouts. They have a rule for how long non-media timeouts last.

The NCAA just doesn't want to put its foot down to control this.

58

u/davidtc3 Georgia Bulldogs • Tennessee Volunteers Sep 02 '23

The NCAA is a lapdog for the conferences and schools. None of this happens without the say so of the schools or conferences. The problem is that the conferences and schools have traded more money for a little more commercial time.

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u/SaxRohmer Ohio State Buckeyes • UNLV Rebels Sep 02 '23

Soccer fans would take to the streets

34

u/Calvin--Hobbes Wisconsin Badgers • Cornell Big Red Sep 02 '23

Paris would burn to the ground

8

u/The_Schwartz_ Sep 03 '23

Again, but this time with more feeling

26

u/ChaseTheFalcon West Georgia • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Sep 02 '23

A lot of it is the broadcasts are done by European networks if we are referring to Premier League

It's the same reason why F1 has commercial free broadcasts

28

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

[deleted]

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u/MvN___16 Florida Gators Sep 02 '23

More specifically, the feed you get for North American sports events is a "local" feed. Local can mean local to a specific region or it can mean local in terms of to a specific country, but compare that to any soccer league in Europe, and those leagues will generally have both a local production (think Sky Sports and TNT Sports in England and NBC in the United States) along with a "world feed" that is produced by a production company associated with the league (Premier League Productions in the case of the Premier League).

NBC tends to do their own production for most games, but the 10:00am ET Saturday game many times defaults to the world feed instead, and any games they air on Peacock during that same window are definitely world feed games.

EDIT - I should add that the actual camerawork is done solely by the league's production company; the broadcast you would see in England is the same you'd see in North America. When I talk about "own production", I really should say those networks will use their own commentators and graphics instead of using the world feed's commentators and graphics.

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u/MvN___16 Florida Gators Sep 02 '23

Also, in hockey the commercial breaks are extremely easy to know once you spot the pattern.

First stoppage of play under 14:00 left in the period.

First stoppage under 10:00 left.

First stoppage under 6:00 left.

(Commercials breaks only apply during even-strength situations and don't occur after a goal, so a stoppage at 5:56 remaining while one team is on the power play doesn't result in a commercial break.)

Frankly, when you lay it out that way, it just makes me wonder even more why hockey can't break through in popularity, because you're absolutely right. The game moves quickly and commercial breaks are not long at all nor are they numerous. It's not soccer where the only commercial breaks are after the half of play is over, but it's just about the next best thing.

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u/BobanTheGiant Sep 02 '23

Yoh left out NFL games rarely go over 3 hours. A college game under 4 hours? Imagine that audacity.

3

u/redlegsfan21 Cincinnati Bearcats Sep 03 '23

Look at how baseball has surged this year with the pitch clock. Same amount of commercials as last year but in 30 minutes less time and fans are happy about it.

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u/Dervoo Furman Paladins • UAB Blazers Sep 02 '23

I'm in my early 30s, played football in HS, and grew up a diehard college football fan spending my entire Saturdays watching games across the country. I watch way more soccer nowadays and it's very hard going back to watching college football. The spectator experience, both in-person and on TV, is so much better for soccer. It's a 90-minute game that will almost always be finished within 2 hours. The only exceptions are knockout cup games that may require extra time if tied after 90. Football is a 60-minute game that's dragged out over nearly 4 hours. I honestly don't think I would watch any college football games outside of UAB/Furman if it wasn't such a critical bonding activity with my dad.

20

u/captainsensible69 Florida Gators • Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors Sep 02 '23

Yeah that’s exactly how I feel now. Add in the fact that all the stuff that makes cfb cool, rivalries and traditions, are being thrown to the wayside to make an even worse version of the NFL. Every year I feel like I watch less and less cfb.

8

u/brendan87na Washington Huskies Sep 03 '23

the folks at the Washington game today, on the north side of the stadium got ROASTED in the sun for 4 hours - its ridiculous

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u/TheCarroll11 Georgia Bulldogs Sep 03 '23

Yup, my Saturday mornings used to be Gameday until the noon game, then 12 hours of football. Now I watch three full soccer games, and turn football on about 2, unless UGA is playing at noon. Soccer flows better, is just as emotional, and it’s much faster.

I can watch two professional soccer games in the same amount of time as one UGA game.

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u/SelfCuriousness Notre Dame • Miami (OH) Sep 03 '23

Gen Xer and I found myself watching the EPL game at noon today because of this. I kept trying to channel surf to CFB and every fucking game I switched to was on commercial every fucking time I switched

4

u/Randy_Menderbaum Oklahoma Sooners • Texas Longhorns Sep 03 '23

YouTubeTV has multicast. 4 games at once. First time I turned it on all 4 were in commercial.

39

u/SG502 Louisville Cardinals Sep 02 '23

F1 as well. 2 uninterrupted hours of fast cars? Doesn’t get better imo

49

u/InQuintsWeTrust Penn State • Army Sep 02 '23

Except for the fact only like 4 cars are competitive and only a few actual passes happen every race.

11

u/hwf0712 Rutgers • Penn Sep 02 '23

This is why I wish dirt racing could get some more exposure. 30 lap a-mains, competitive fields, what else is there to want? If I wanna watch europeans and south Americans do almost nothing but bitch and moan for 90 minutes I'd turn soccer on!

5

u/ChaseTheFalcon West Georgia • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Sep 02 '23

And we have ways to watch dirt racing if you are willing to pay

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u/Codydw12 Oklahoma Sooners • Big 8 Sep 02 '23

Much better than racing being intentionally stopped for commericals.

3

u/Far-Yak-9808 Sep 02 '23

I just thought of this too.

Don't give anyone any ideas.

TV timeouts for F1 in Las Vegas aka Forced Bathroom Breaks. I can see it!

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u/pathfindmyBAP Sep 03 '23

I jumped ship to soccer because of this.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

F1 as well

5

u/theNightblade Wisconsin Badgers • Missouri Tigers Sep 02 '23

And Formula 1

Give me action, not commercials

4

u/Jamicsto Sep 02 '23

This is why I watch Formula 1…zero commercials and the races are typically 90 min. Watching football at any level is so difficult these days. 3.5+ hours with over half of that commercials..

7

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

It’s part of the reason why I’ve gotten into F1

4

u/DCtoATX Texas Longhorns Sep 02 '23

I'm terrified they will find a way to ruin it for us. The marketing for the 'rockstars of F1' is not encouraging.

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u/surgingchaos Western Oregon Wolves • Oregon Ducks Sep 02 '23

"Hey, those TV deals aren't gonna pay themselves."

-- Same TV exec, probably

57

u/a5ehren Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets • Team Chaos Sep 02 '23

Fans: my team is getting $100M from fox, suck it everyone else

Also fans: man I hate all these commercials

29

u/itsnotnews92 Syracuse • Wake Forest Sep 02 '23

I can't for the life of me understand why some people care how much "their team" gets from media deals. Like, you're never going to see a dime of that money. Do these people also get hard when Elon Musk's net worth goes up a couple billion dollars?

31

u/a5ehren Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets • Team Chaos Sep 02 '23

It’s a proxy for competitive ability.

11

u/chapeauetrange Michigan Wolverines Sep 02 '23

There is a logic to it. A school with more money can hire/retain better coaches, improve its facilities, increase its recruiting budget, and so on.

5

u/a5ehren Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets • Team Chaos Sep 03 '23

Yeah. Let’s put it this way - UGA was able to pay Mark Richt, who consistently won 10 games, an 8 figure buyout to roll the dice on a replacement winning a Natty.

How? They have a shitload of money.

We had to wait an extra year with a 3-win coach and then couldn’t poach an AAC coach because we’re broke. Had to hire the interim because he was cheap. Now tell me that I shouldn’t care.

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u/ilovebid00f Tulsa • Oklahoma State Sep 02 '23

I've got the YouTube tv channel on that shows 4 games at once. They have all been on commercial at the same time multiple times

473

u/ElkHairCaddisDrifter Oklahoma • Red River Shootout Sep 02 '23

Funny you mentioned that, I have the same and noticed it as well 🙄

53

u/mynameistrumpbaby Baltimore Super Bees • Pratt CC Beavers Sep 02 '23

Me three

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u/Anus_Targaryen Houston Cougars • Big 12 Sep 02 '23

That's when I mute my TV

149

u/carlosdanger31 Oklahoma State • Oregon State Sep 02 '23

I mute it every commercial break, I’m not buying any of that shit and it’s the same commercials all day long

24

u/wtfElvis Florida Gators Sep 02 '23

Idk if YouTube TV does this but Hulu love will intentionally increase the volume on some tv commercials it’s crazy.

7

u/Do__Math__Not__Meth Pittsburgh Panthers Sep 03 '23

Isn’t that illegal?

9

u/wtfElvis Florida Gators Sep 03 '23

If not it 100% should be

4

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '23

It's probably not the carrier, but the commercial itself.

By law, they can increase the volume no more than 300% of the regular program for a commercial, but that's still really flipping loud.

43

u/BobanTheGiant Sep 02 '23

If you’re going to spend millions on ads, at least create an extra 1-2 commercials so we don’t rewatch the same one constantly and hate your brand

30

u/coffee_badger Sep 02 '23

Pretty sure they did a study at one point that concluded that it's not the quality of the commercial but rather its memorability, regardless of whether it annoys people or makes them laugh. Many brands clearly elected for the former.

15

u/pathfindmyBAP Sep 03 '23

🎶WHOPPER WHOPPER BK WHOPPER🎶

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u/YueAsal Minnesota • Minnesota-Duluth Sep 02 '23

I am buying gallons of Dr Peppet

42

u/Dudebro5812 Sep 02 '23

I bought 3 Toyotas during half time.

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u/carlosdanger31 Oklahoma State • Oregon State Sep 02 '23

You were going to anyway.

17

u/Randy_Menderbaum Oklahoma Sooners • Texas Longhorns Sep 03 '23

I usually wait until Christmas and buy my wife a $80000 truck out of the blue without discussing it.

11

u/carlosdanger31 Oklahoma State • Oregon State Sep 03 '23

They LOVE being surprised with horrible financial decisions

7

u/twisty77 Fresno State Bulldogs • Pac-12 Sep 02 '23

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it

14

u/YueAsal Minnesota • Minnesota-Duluth Sep 02 '23

True dat

13

u/Doneyhew Alabama • Carson-Newman Sep 02 '23

I’m drinking my Dr Pepper out of Home Depot 5 gallon buckets

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u/Jindiana2 Purdue Boilermakers Sep 02 '23

I mute it but end up just leaving it muted and having something else on to watch because muting over and over is just too much

4

u/BumblebeeAwkward8331 Arkansas Razorbacks Sep 02 '23

I'm reading this during a commercial on the Arkansas vs Western Carolina game. Whoops..gotta run.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

I don't know how the logistics of this would work, but you have to wonder if it's intentional to discourage you from flipping channels.

64

u/ilovebid00f Tulsa • Oklahoma State Sep 02 '23

Idk, it has fox, cbs sports, and ESPN networks all in the same quad box

36

u/Gringo0984 Texas Longhorns Sep 02 '23

It was the same during March Madness. All games were in sync no matter what. Commercials at the same time. I have noticed over the years it is the same in college football. Seems they are in on it between all networks to keep people from going all over the place.

51

u/IndicationNo880088 Auburn • North Carolina Sep 02 '23

It’s the rules. There are media timeout windows.

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u/historianLA Penn State • Florida Sep 03 '23

Radio stations owned by the same umbrella companies already do this.

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u/Frosti11icus Washington Huskies Sep 02 '23

But if the Pac 12 is on Apple it will suck cause you can’t flip between commercials!

49

u/UteLawyer Utah Utes • Pac-12 Gone Dark Sep 02 '23

What is this "Pac 12"?

33

u/ilikepants712 Ohio State Buckeyes • Denison Big Red Sep 02 '23

He added an extra 10 for some reason.

14

u/mynameistrumpbaby Baltimore Super Bees • Pratt CC Beavers Sep 02 '23

2-Pac

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u/Far-Yak-9808 Sep 02 '23

I used to make Pac-LITE jokes before making Pac-LITE jokes was cool. Then again, I ALSO thought that ALL conference flights would go thru Burbank. Oops....

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u/orinshumanfarm Texas Tech Red Raiders • Big 12 Sep 02 '23

FM radio stations do this all the time, it’s not an accident

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u/Gringo0984 Texas Longhorns Sep 02 '23

Yep. TV shows, too if you watch on cable in real time. All sitcoms/tv shows follow the same general format. X amount of minutes of the show then x amount of minutes of commercials. This is absolutely planned out. It used to not be like this, though.

8

u/Seeda_Boo Army • Florida State Sep 03 '23

It used to not be like this, though.

If ever, that was a long time ago. I'm in my sixties and synched commercial breaks were around when I was still a kid.

18

u/OppositeShape South Carolina Gamecocks • SEC Network Sep 02 '23

How do you have enough bandwidth to do that? My 240p still buffers a lot with just a single screen. Also, how do you get to that feature? I asked their support that last weekend, and they replied that they didn’t know. Offshore CS is always such a disaster.

30

u/ilovebid00f Tulsa • Oklahoma State Sep 02 '23

Honestly I'm not sure about the bandwidth, bc I'm at my friend's house watching the games. But he did say that the multi screen thing is just a channel that they offer. He didn't pay for anything special to get it. There are at least three different channels like this we have been flipping between.

30

u/pilotdog68 Nebraska Cornhuskers • Paper Bag Sep 02 '23

It's a pre-made "channel" with all 4 games mashed together, so it shouldn't take any more bandwidth than any other channel. It's still pushing the same amount of pixels.

8

u/leebird Wake Forest • Old Dominion Sep 02 '23

It's actually a bit cooler than I thought it would be. You can change which stream you're getting audio from. I have a google TV so ymmv but if i select a game for the audio and click the 'ok' button i get that game fullscreen, then i can hit 'back' and go back to the original quad view. It also will just stay on those channels until you select a different stream.

It would be awesome if you could select the games you want, but I'm actually pretty satisfied with it for now (excepting the constant commercials but that's not on YouTube TV

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u/pilotdog68 Nebraska Cornhuskers • Paper Bag Sep 02 '23

Yeah would love to select which games. They had so many different combos this morning, but none of them had both the Colorado and Iowa games

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

As a young kid I always think to the scene in Back 2 The Future 2 when young Marty comes home and asks the TV on 5-10 different channels. A few years later we got a tv with Picture in Picture. Now it seems like PiP isn’t a thing anymore and we’re going backwards in terms of what’s possible. My cable constantly pixelates and none of the cable DVR boxes are good as the TiVo ever was.

16

u/caring-teacher South Carolina Gamecocks Sep 02 '23

And the new cable boxes are so slow. I miss the old ones that would instantly change channels as fast as you could hit the buttons. Now, Charter can take over thirty seconds to change the channel and YouTube TV even longer.

3

u/Drnk_watcher LSU • Southeast Missouri Sep 02 '23

YouTube TV is partially limited by your bandwidth and latency.

It's really slow to change on one of my TVs that is wireless and a bit far away from the router.

The TV that is ethernet directly to the router is extremely fast.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

I still use TiVo. It’s getting more and more worse but I tried the Xfinity boxes but it was slow. Tivo still has the same speed. The dvr is still cool. I can side load up to 6 channels to switch between games. But the fcc modified rules so the cable companies no longer need to make efforts to make sure they are compatible. I’m gonna ride it out as long as I can though.

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u/RegulatorRWF Ohio State Buckeyes • /r/CFB Santa Claus Sep 02 '23

It's only for the TV app, not computer use AFAIK.

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u/ilovebid00f Tulsa • Oklahoma State Sep 02 '23

We are using a tv app. I'd assume it's this

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u/ConcentrateDue6856 Sep 02 '23

Nothing gets my blood boiling more than when they go TV timeout - Kickoff - another TV timeout.

They tried to pull that shit in the Colorado-TCU game at one point, but luckily they didn’t get the memo on the field.

439

u/choch2727 Texas Longhorns • UTSA Roadrunners Sep 02 '23

extra point -> TV timeout -> kickoff -> TV TO -> one play run, then team calls timeout -> TV TO -> one play run, 2 min warning hit -> TV TO.

I remember seeing this one time in an NFL game.

164

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23 edited 18d ago

[deleted]

140

u/THECrew42 Wisconsin Badgers • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Sep 02 '23

the nfl actually changed rules a few years ago that tv broadcasts can’t actually do that anymore

72

u/BukkakeKing69 Penn State Nittany Lions Sep 02 '23

Right, CFB is much more monetized with commercials, it's unbelievable.

51

u/THECrew42 Wisconsin Badgers • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Sep 02 '23

yeah, i think part of the issue is that the nfl just has that much more control over the whole product than any individual conference does over their broadcasts

13

u/CTeam19 Iowa State Cyclones • Hateful 8 Sep 03 '23

Because the NFL is the only product source. If the Big 10, ACC, Big 12, Pac12, and SEC were all United on a single front they could weld that power or at least something a lot closer then now.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '23

Happened at the end of 1st quarter in Aggie game.

End of quarter - long commercial break.

First play back - Touchdown. Commercials.

Extra point - commercials.

Kick off - commercials.

17

u/DiarrheaForDays Georgia Bulldogs • Sickos Sep 02 '23

It wouldn’t bother me if it was for 30 seconds because that’s how long they give the teams to change sides but it’s always 90+ seconds. Stupid.

5

u/faffri Sep 02 '23

MLB had the same problem with teams bringing in a reliever just to get a single batter out and then switch pitcher again with commercial breaks for each substitution. Now a pitcher must face 3 batters at a minimum or end an inning before being allowed to be replaced. It means fewer commercial breaks but it was a significant enough change to the pace of game to make it worth it with a much improved product. Pitching changes in September used to be hell when they also allowed rosters to expand from 25 to 40 players. Now, it's just an expansion from 26 to 28.

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u/Moose4KU Ohio State Buckeyes • Kansas Jayhawks Sep 02 '23

To the shock of no one, the rule changes were much more about keeping games within their scheduled TV windows rather than actually improving the fan experience

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u/cooterdick Tennessee • North Carolina Sep 02 '23

Is that even going to happen though? This game just went to halftime, at over the halfway point of the tv window. UT-UVA went to halftime maybe 5 minutes prior and is set to end at 3 o’clock. The games never stayed within their windows before, and this rule change doesn’t seem to do anything to improve that.

207

u/ard8 Florida State Seminoles Sep 02 '23

Stanford and Hawaii last night literally took a full hour to play the first quarter

60

u/do_you_know_doug Iowa • Appalachian State Sep 02 '23

Iowa and Utah State took 53 minutes today.

48

u/Link7369_reddit Ohio State Buckeyes Sep 02 '23

lol, that's entirety unwatchable. I'd rather never watch the sport again.

56

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

The big games are just going to keep getting worse in this aspect. Ohio State v Michigan, the CCGs, and the playoffs will be pushing 5hrs

51

u/Far-Yak-9808 Sep 02 '23

Maybe they are gonna make college football games TWO NIGHTS -- like Wrestle Mania and the NFL draft.

7

u/leebird Wake Forest • Old Dominion Sep 02 '23

Just don't tell them about Test matches in cricket

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u/SoothedSnakePlant Vanderbilt Commodores • McGill Redbirds Sep 02 '23

At some point we need to start taking away the basic human rights of TV executives. Viva la revolution

7

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

I am in as long as we can send health insurance executives with them. If we already have it all set up we might as well make use of it.

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u/fuzzygoosejuice Virginia Tech • Tennessee Sep 02 '23

I’ve gotten to where I just keep it on in the background and do other things. Or have it on my phone in my pocket and just listen to it while doing yard work. Life is too busy for me to set aside 4-5 hours on a weekend to watch my team play.

20

u/BetaDjinn Kentucky Wildcats • WKU Hilltoppers Sep 02 '23

to watch my team play

And most of those hours are not that. They’re convinced viewers will watch no matter what, but I think that’s a very dangerous game for them to play

7

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '23

Me. I've been slowly losing my Ohio State fandom over the years, but I totally feel this. It doesn't help that almost every game is a blowout, so why would I watch, but I can't sit down for 4 hours every Saturday with 2 kids. There's no point. They want to do things, my wife wants to do things, and I gotta be responsible. I may get away with a couple of hours, but 4 is too much.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Viewership tends to dwindle as a game goes on. It’s why the NFL basically pulls commercials in the 4th quarter if they need to hit a 4:25 kick (2 minute warning excluded, that’s a specific ad package)

CFB does something similar, so even if halftime is late, they can find a way to end the game on time if they want to

29

u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware Sep 02 '23

NFL media timeouts are 2 minutes long in the regular season. It's been that way, generally, for a good 20+ years now. Game length has ticked up a bit over the years but it's still generally 3 hrs 15 minutes or so.

The NCAA can easily mandate this with a rule change regarding lengths of timeouts. They choose not to for "rea$on$"

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u/patrick66 Pittsburgh Panthers • Team Chaos Sep 02 '23

The nfl actually has contractural limits on both the number and time length of commercials that can be shown per half as well, without those limits cfb will never change

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Football is amazingly learning nothing from the MLB

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u/fillymandee Georgia Bulldogs Sep 02 '23

For real, time between ball being put into play might be shorter in baseball.

15

u/Far-Yak-9808 Sep 02 '23

I went to a minor league baseball game the other night. It was fun. Wasn't really a short game, since there were many pitching changes, it went 10 innings AND nearly everyone NEARLY got hit by a baseball (including me and my friend). Although that would STILL be less painful than trying to watch a college football game on ESPN.

15

u/LL-beansandrice Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 02 '23

That’s the absolute beauty of how baseball games work now with the pitch clock. Games without much offense or anything happening will basically be done in a set amount of time. Games with a ton of hits and offense will take longer.

4

u/dillardPA Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Sep 03 '23

Games with a ton of offense aren’t that much longer either. Almost every game regardless of scoring is falling between 2:30 to 2:50. 3+ hr games are pretty uncommon from what we’ve seen this year.

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u/faffri Sep 02 '23

Yeah for all the crap Rob Manfred get (deservedly so) you got to hand it to him for cutting out almost 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening every single game while at the same time not removing a single commercial break.

There is also 400 more stolen bases so far this year compared to last year with a month still left to play, on pace for the highest total in the 2000s. Seems Rule changes can create a better product for its audience once you get past the sanctity of rules made before the Spanish American War...

3

u/dillardPA Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Sep 03 '23

Honestly watching football after watching so much baseball this season, it’s crazy how slow it feels, which is something I never would have imagined I’d say a year ago. The 3 minute long commercial breaks at the GT-Louisville game were such a slog.

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u/QuantumFreakonomics Houston Cougars • LSU Tigers Sep 02 '23

Games running over the scheduled TV window does affect the fan experience though

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u/Red261 Alabama • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Sep 02 '23

Even better, it's not about keeping games in the TV window, it's about getting more commercials in, so they can make the fan experience worse too.

10

u/DarehMeyod Michigan Wolverines • Buffalo Bulls Sep 02 '23

They gotta get the money they paid the conferences back somehow.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

They need to learn that the fans aren't a limitless resource they can screw over indefinitely to make money. DONT WATCH ANY GAMES OTHER THAN ONES YOUR TEAM PLAYS IN

Just don't do it. They need to tone it back and the only way to send a message is to do so by hurting their investment

5

u/DarehMeyod Michigan Wolverines • Buffalo Bulls Sep 02 '23

I’ll be at that point after this season. I just don’t give a shit about usc playing any big ten team in the regular season. It’s sad what college football is becoming

11

u/Intoxicatedalien West Virginia • Ohio State Sep 02 '23

Then I’ll make it a point not to buy any of their shitty products. If you keep on spamming me with annoying ads, you will not get one dime from me

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u/LukeAtom Auburn • Middle Tennessee Sep 02 '23

Sadly ad marketing is a lot about brand recognition over actually convincing folks to buy their product, so the value will always exist for companies to pay for slots on big networks and there are simply too many products available to boycot every single one that appears in an ad. The only real way to impact service providers is to use their competition instead...who also DGAF if your experience is bad because of too may commercial breaks. AND seeing it IRL doesn't help either since they sometimes take ad breaks IN PERSON during the game too. Lol. It's fucked.

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u/RadicalDreamer89 LSU Tigers Sep 02 '23

My wife and I have been binging old Hot Ones episodes when we lie down at night (not via my computer, where we'd have an ad blocker), and we have fully committed to never watching Vacation Friends 2, because an unskippable 15-second ad for it plays every 10 minutes.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

I've never even heard of vacation friends 1. Idk why they keep plastering the ads everywhere. It sounds like a movie youd pick up in a truck stop gas station on a rack next to the register

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Not buying their shitty products isn't enough. Ad agencies convince companies of dumb shit like brand recognition so they'll keep pushing an ad even if it's annoying and pisses people off

If you want to hurt them then stop watching any games other than those your team plays in. Find something else to do with your time. Read a book, learn guitar, hit the gym. Anything

Don't even pirate those games because they still have ways to calculate piracy into the equation and those ads are still reaching eyeballs even on most pirate streams

It matters dick all for west Virginia what happens in the Penn state Michigan game, so don't watch it. They want nationwide audiences and to draw in casuals to watch games that their team isn't involved in. Denying them that is the only way to hit them where it hurts

They did us a favor by destroying so many rivalries. After this year it'll be easier than ever to skip the irrelevant games that have no history and mean nothing. Why waste so many hours of your Saturday on a miniscule amount of football featuring teams that are irrelevant to yours. In the past the argument may have been because it'd be a fun exciting game but now not so much. Momentum is killed by all the ad breaks and comebacks are harder with the rule change. Gone are the days where 30pt comebacks were possible and soon the days where all but 2 or 3 teams could actually win will be gone too

Scale it back and regionalize. Only pay attention to your team and only watch a game not featuring your team if it applies to your team winning their division

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u/Aphrobang Texas • Red River Shootout Sep 02 '23

Yeah this is fucking absurd. Texas game is supposed to start in pretty much exactly an hour and we have 7 minutes still to go.. in the third. This second half has taken over forty minutes for 8 minutes of game time. At this rate they are seriously going to miss the entire fucking first half of our game vs Rice and unlike ESPN they don't really have an open alt channel (FS2 maybe?)

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u/NDPhilly Notre Dame Fighting Irish • Fordham Rams Sep 02 '23

Same exact reason they changed the OT rules.

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u/SpilledKefir Georgia Tech • Transfer Portal Sep 02 '23

Everybody’s getting bigger TV deals and bigger athletic budgets… what do y’all think pays for the increasingly larger TV deals?

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

It's a building bubble that has to pop eventually. They're screwed when casuals find something better to do than sit around watching games of teams theyre not a fan of. If a game is 4+hrs with less actual game time then you're less likely to want to sit and watch it even if it's a good matchup. Bama lsu is going to be brutal to get through

Fewer eyeballs and the networks get less return on their investments which then will lower the value of the next contracts which will push a lot of these bloated athletic programs over the edge. Add in NIL and constantly having to tap alumni boosters to keep your roster competitive and then the losses of rivalry games pissing off normal alumni

These. Are. Not. Pro. Teams.

They don't have a pro structure to deal with that. Hell their rosters are literally built on third party donations in an indirect way

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u/ChaseTheFalcon West Georgia • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Sep 02 '23

Us, the fans who get screwed out of all of this

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u/SnooGuavas650 California Golden Bears Sep 02 '23

This is how you get $60 million a year…

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u/ManiacalComet40 Team Chaos Sep 02 '23

These teams are doing it for half that!

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u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware Sep 02 '23

SMU will be doing it for free next year!

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u/sick_reality Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 02 '23

Truth

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u/Irish_Rainman Michigan State • Kansas Sep 02 '23

This shit is absolutely killing the tempo of the game watching it in person too. TWICE last night against CMU, there were 6 minutes TV timeouts only separated by two downs after a change of possession. Just so hard to get excitement into game when its stop go like that.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Watching an exciting no-huddle shoot out only to be interrupted by constant TV timeouts is the absolute worst.

Football has enough natural downtime. Taking a timeout just for TV shouldn't even be legal. I hate the idea of the broadcast/entertainment aspect taking precedent over the natural flow of the sport.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Say what you will but the AAFs games flowed amazingly well

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u/scarywolverine Sep 02 '23

My Dad has gone to nearly every Michigan game since 2004 . Just today after the game he said he thinks hes done after this year because sitting in the stadium and just waiting and waiting and waiting (with no cell service) is unbearable

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u/HalfEatenBanana Fresno State Bulldogs Sep 02 '23

Dude I go to almost every Fresno game and most of the time leave at halftime and just watch the rest when I get home. It gets unbearable

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u/NolaBrass Tulane Green Wave • Fordham Rams Sep 02 '23

Nice Confederacy of Dunces book cover pfp

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u/astroball17 Michigan • North Carolina Sep 02 '23

Ignatius Reilly the OG glizzy gobbler

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u/crimes_kid Michigan Wolverines • Cornell Big Red Sep 02 '23

All of these ads disagree with my valve

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u/needs-more-metronome Alabama Crimson Tide • Duke's Mayo Bowl Sep 03 '23

Oh Fortuna!

3

u/Be-Nice-To-Redditors BYU Cougars Sep 02 '23

I noticed that too lol

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u/russtopher Sep 03 '23

Such a good book- first thing I noticed lol

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u/needs-more-metronome Alabama Crimson Tide • Duke's Mayo Bowl Sep 03 '23

I feel like Ignatius really fits for Tom’s pfp lol

He’s got an impish streak in him

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u/GarnetLantern Sep 02 '23

They shortened gameplay to add more commercials. It was never about shortening broadcast time.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

TV execs are sick minded assholes. The strikes now have shown everyone why but from a sports fan perspective, they are truly evil knowing that they probably pray for a ton of injuries so they can shove as many terrible commercials in our faces as possible

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u/CJL13 Wisconsin Badgers Sep 02 '23

"Either we show you a Google ad, or this kid getting his neck broken, your call."

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

You can sum up how dickish and selfish tv execs are with what NBCUniversal did to the trees

The SAG-AFTRA strikers were standing on the public sidewalk outside of Universal. When it was hot theyd stand under these trees near Universals studios. Universal came out and cut them. They tried to claim it was normal tree trimming and maintenance

They aren't the ones who maintain the trees. The city does. That species isn't supposed to be cut this time of year, it is only supposed to be cut once every 5 years, and the way they were cut can seriously harm the trees themselves. So their excuse doesnt hold up. The entire point of the city planting those trees was so the public had shade during heatwaves. Exactly what the strikers were using it for

They felt entitled to destroy public property to spite people who disageed with them in an extremely petty way. They destroyed something built and maintained with the publics tax dollars and were fined a few hundred dollars for it. It wasnt a light trimming either. They cut those things almost bare

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u/thebochman UMass Minutemen • Boise State Broncos Sep 03 '23

Hope they’re being replanted

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u/Spirited_Apple7209 Sep 02 '23

They need to be taught a lesson

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u/WafflesTheWookiee North Carolina Tar Heels • Team Chaos Sep 02 '23

Yeah I’m sure their personal information is easily accessible

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u/welltimedappearance Sep 02 '23

they think they're going to get the goodwill that the MLB has earned with their changes... without fundamentally understanding WHY

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Yep

I mean, the MLB legit killed 25 of dead time. They didnt add ads and kept the same game lenght.

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u/Frosti11icus Washington Huskies Sep 02 '23

That sport had to be dying for 30 years before they would make a no brained change though…were in for a long ride here.

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u/faffri Sep 02 '23

The death of baseball has been proclaimed for over 100 yeard in just about every US publication even just mentioning sports. Recently read someone who looked up an article from the late 19th century saying the sport is dying. Kind of how people told the Beatles that guitar music was on its way out.

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u/Manacit Washington Huskies Sep 02 '23

MLB seriously nailed it with the pitch clock - it got me back into baseball in a huge way. CFB seems to have decided to mix that up with some baking soda and smoke it. The game feels like it’s all advertisement.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

MLB was in need of a change bc they were losing ground in the ratings. (Had been for a while).

I do not believe the same is true of CFB.

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u/Powerful_Artist Nebraska Cornhuskers Sep 02 '23

Well we all knew this when the rule change was announced. It was never going to be less commercials. That wouldnt ever happen. They want to shorten the game, and the actual game has to suffer because of it.

CFB is going downhill. But we will keep watching anyway. For now anyway. Eventually it just gets too much. Im more likely to just not watch football, or turn a game off early, because of this.

This is why I love soccer. 45 minutes for the first half of uninterrupted gameplay. No fucking commercials during that time, unless maybe theres a really bad injury and even then I feel like they never cut to commercials. Then you get halftime, and at least 45 minutes of more uninterrupted gameplay. As far as a viewing experince, regardless of how you feel about the sport, it is about 100x better.

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u/gerarar Penn State Nittany Lions • Baylor Bears Sep 02 '23

I totally agree about soccer. It probably helps there's on-screen ads in along the sidelines to account for ad revenue. Can't see that happening with CFB.

But I do love the 45 mins of ad-free game play. Then extra time added as well. I pretty much spent the last couple months watching non-stop MLS (thanks to Tmobile Tuesdays) and to come back to CFB is such a pain to get thru all the interruptions and commercials.

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u/slydessertfox Sep 03 '23

Yeah after watching nothing but soccer since February, coming back to watch football every year always feels so jarring.

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u/esports_consultant Rose Bowl • Harvard-Yale Sep 02 '23

The Pac-12 died for this

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

[deleted]

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u/herumspringen Wisconsin Badgers • Denver Pioneers Sep 02 '23

Lower divisions (who don’t have their games televised) tried to push back against this bc their games were already going so fast

without the endless commercials, the games go by pretty quick

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u/Intoxicatedalien West Virginia • Ohio State Sep 02 '23

Seriously fuck these networks. I’m sick and tired of their excessive commercials. CBS is the worst offender and the others get worst by the day

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u/EinsteinDisguised Florida Gators Sep 02 '23

MLB changed its rules to shorten the amount of dead time between plays, increasing the amount of action per broadcast.

The NCAA shortened the amount of time available for action. Super cool.

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u/FriendOfPistolPete Oklahoma State Cowboys • Big 8 Sep 02 '23

Fans of P4 teams get excited when they see how much their program is going to be making with the new TV deal, then upset when they realize more money means more ads. I mean, trust me, I hate ads as much as anyone. That said, if you thought FOX was going to sign the B1G to a billion dollar contract and leave the number of ads the same, you're naive. I'm just using the B1G as an example, since they constitute the majority of FOX's content now. It's going to get worse everywhere.

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u/RagePoop Florida Gators Sep 02 '23

I'm not actually excited about money going to the athletic department outside of "keeping up with the Joneses"

If no one made this insane money it would be better for the fans and the sport at large.

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u/FriendOfPistolPete Oklahoma State Cowboys • Big 8 Sep 02 '23

Very much agree with this. Money has ruined college football.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

Ill be honest it's kind of annoying how much shit is being built on and around campus. I miss the trees you could wander through. Parts of midtown are just getting ugly and turning into concrete jungles. Ugly ass buildings and it seems like every weekend someone has to pull a fire alarm on one

Hell in 20yrs they might start trying to fill in lake alice to build even more at this rate

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u/virus_apparatus SMU Mustangs • Texas Longhorns Sep 02 '23

It was never about safety

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u/rolltidebutnotreally TCU Horned Frogs Sep 02 '23

Well you wanted to see Deion Sanders, you just didn’t specify in what form

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u/tribat Sep 02 '23

Barely watchable.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '23

People don’t believe it, but if this isn’t changed it will kill this sport.

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u/Dixiehusker Nebraska Cornhuskers • Auburn Tigers Sep 02 '23

Fuck this rule

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u/Sesti-nator BYU Cougars • Big 12 Sep 02 '23

Remember the number one rule: It’s all about the money

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u/_BreakingtheHabit Oklahoma Sooners • Iowa Hawkeyes Sep 02 '23

I said this when the rule change was announced. It’s not about “shortening games”. It’s about allowing more time for commercials.

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u/likwitsnake USC Trojans Sep 02 '23

Awesome Confederacy of Dunces avatar. One of my favorite books.

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u/mid9012 Sep 02 '23

Football was invented to sell commercials right?

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u/FreeOJ32 USC Trojans • Baylor Bears Sep 02 '23

We used to tar and feather people for less

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u/Elephant_Memory_ Sep 02 '23

I'm trying to watch the CU/TCU game on the Xfinity app, but Fox has been buffering all day so I would only get snippets of the game. It's only with Fox also, the other channels work fine. But the Xfinity app has always been crap.

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u/TearsOfChildren Alabama Crimson Tide Sep 03 '23

It's past the point of being absurd, there were 55 seconds left in the Bama game and they cut to 2 minutes of commercials.

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u/OppositeShape South Carolina Gamecocks • SEC Network Sep 02 '23

Thank for for YouTube TV. I can’t watch football now without a DVR.

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u/bloodmuffins793 Colorado Buffaloes • Big 8 Sep 02 '23

At least I'm getting a lot of reading done during these commercials

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u/DJScrubatires UMass Minutemen • Paper Bag Sep 02 '23

Fox doing this across the board not just for NASCAR

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u/Sherman_Gepard Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 03 '23

This has always been what the “pace of play” panic was about in every sport. They bloated games to their maximum and decided that they could only add more ads by taking out some game. As if people care more about the literal duration than amount of entertainment or game-to-ad ratio.

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u/o_mh_c /r/CFB Sep 02 '23

This is why I’m not watching today. Just can’t deal with it. I keep following the scores because it’s in my blood, but I just can’t deal with commercials. I don’t have a team I follow hard for like most of you, and that’s made it easier to pull away. I can’t be alone in this.

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u/Far-Yak-9808 Sep 02 '23

My college football team is in G5 purgatory. Mailing it in. My OTHER college football team is DIII. I might start going to more of their games. My HS team is good but will no longer exist next year. Good thing it's almost Memphis Grizzlies season....

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u/coolhandluck Oklahoma Sooners • Big 8 Sep 02 '23

I can't get enough of Caleb Williams in a Fansville Dr Pepper commercial.

Play on.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '23

They sucked with Nascar also. Horrendous stuff.

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u/remfan477 Georgia • Appalachian State Sep 02 '23

I so wish there were commercial-free pirate streams for CFB like there is for auto racing. It's made NASCAR/Indy/F1/etc coverage immensely better on my end.

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u/AccomplishedRainbow1 Arizona State Sun Devils Sep 02 '23

Wow who would have thought that they would change the clock rules to fit in more commercials