What you suspected about gridiron was right

I Was Watching a Commercial and a Football Game Broke Out

This post quotes from the WSJ:

According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there’s barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg. In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays.

So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps.

I've never tried to watch a game on TV, but certainly you get the impression watching movies about it that nothing much happens on the field, and it turns out that impression is true. It seems to be more about large groups of people gathering together to amuse themselves with anything but what is going on in the field of play - as Australians do during tedious games of cricket. (At least gridiron has the good grace to be finished in one afternoon.)