Too early to call a winner
Too early to call a winner (half time just ended), but the Super Bowl is underway. Sunday for the rest of us. Just think; hundreds of millions of fans, even if only for today. When you don’t have a preference for one club over another, does that mean that you should be disqualified from watching? Didn’t think so. Besides, for a large part of the nation, the advertisements (today we got the real ones) and half time show are important.
The Wall Street Journal printed an analysis of how a big game plays out from the point of view of a spectator at home. I’m going to thank them for the information that I’m using for academic purposes.
The broadcast time for a professional football game lasts for an average 174 minutes. The air time is divided, roughly, as follows.
- Images of the huddle or the bench area 75 minutes
- Publicity 60 minutes
- Play 11 minutes
- Shots of the coaching staff 6 minutes
- Shots of the referees 3 minutes
The playing time has remained unchanged over the last century; a study by the university of Indiana back in 1912 estimated play at 13 minutes, 16 seconds. If you can’t fit your personal breaks in without missing part of the important 11 minutes, you need to find a new spectator sport.
Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on the half time show, starring Madonna and a cast of dozens hundreds and hundreds. She might be a little too mature to make the cheerleader thing work properly, but with the assistance of Cee Lo Green, the choice of “Like A Prayer” was perfect for this Sunday evening.
I’d love to wait for the end of the game, but the webmaster for the NY Giants team site declared them as winners, yesterday. If they hold the line, we’ll have entered a new era in game prediction.
