So soccer is boring, huh. Not enough goals being scored? Not enough action?
Well a recent Wall Street Journal article turns a common complaint advanced by many American football fans on its head. Maybe soccer doesn’t have enough scoring to appease the gridiron faithful, but if your buddies continue harping on and on about the lack of action in soccer, the Wall Street Journal’s study on NFL coverage provides some pretty damning figures.
Here are a few highlights from the study for your debates:
- NFL games are 60 minutes long.
- The average amount of time the ball is in play is 11 minutes, making the inaction to action ratio roughly 5 to 1.
- Commercials take up an hour out of every NFL broadcast.
- The average NFL broadcast spends 56% more time showing replays than live game action.
These numbers support what many of us already know. If you’re a fan of action, soccer is your sport. If you enjoy watching coaches playing with their headsets, huddles, players walking on and off the field, watching guys in the booth talk about anything that comes to mind in an attempt to make you forget that nothing is going on, and beer commercials, American football is your game.
Don’t get me wrong. I was once an American football fanatic and understand the game very well. But ever since I strayed, returning to American football’s constant stoppages in play has become increasingly difficult. But now I have some data for my next battle to explain why the real action is on the soccer field.
I started using that on soccer haters and it’s really funny to see the consternation on their faces when they can’t come up with a comeback. That said, I still love American football and I watch it because I played it, it was fun then and is now, and I love watching 6′4″ 255 lbs. men annihilate each other.
I’ll admit that I’m also an American football fan. It’s just that some of the arguments from the soccer haters simply fly in the face of the reality of the sports they love. There’s plenty of reason to dislike watching soccer. Lack of action just isn’t one of them.