Two-minute warning and other stupid things...(NFL etc.)

Great Debates
1

I’ve lived in the US for just over a year now, and i really enjoy watching the football. My first season over here was helped by the fact that i live in Baltimore and my adopted team took out the Superbowl.

But much as i enjoy watching the NFL, and appreciate the athletic abilities of the players, some things really irk me and i was wondering if any life-time NFL followers think the same way.

One thing is the tendency in football (and in basketball) for a ridiculously large number of time-outs. Each half in a game of football only goes for 30 minutes, during which each team gets three timeouts, and yet they still feel the need to stop play two minutes before the end of each half. I can’t see the logic of this, except as just another opportunity to go to a TV commecial. You’ll be hard-pressed to convince me that it makes the game more exciting. Or that multi-million dollar professional sportsmen need so many timeouts to confer over how to play the game.

Any thoughts on this or other useless sporting conventions?

(By the way, i write in sorrow, as the Ravens are currently being comprehensively outplayed by Green Bay. :frowning: )

2

We hate it too. It’s all about the TV money. I mind the 2 minite warning less than the constant breaks afte EVERY change of posession, which seem to get longer every year. It used to be after a score or a punt, they’d break for ONE commercial. Now its 3 or 4.

3

I’m afraid you’ll just have to learn to live with the 2-minute warning. It ostensibly has a purpose, that it allows the officials to tell the players and coaches how many timeouts they have (which they seem to be unable to keep track of on their own) and that there are rules changes in effect (in particular only the fumbling player can advance a fumble in the last two minutes).

But, yes, it does exist to allow the networks to sell more commercials. The NFL also tends to take timeouts after kickoff returns. There is no reason to do this except to add more commercial slots.

If you want to watch a sport without television timeouts, stick to soccer. 45 minutes straight through for each half (with a couple of minutes tacked on to account for stoppages). A lot of people may not like soccer, but at least doesn’t take very long to sit through.

4

Thanks for your input.

I agree with you totally about this. The worst is after a touchdown, where they go to a break, have three or four commercials, come back for the kickoff play (which takes about 15 seconds), then go to another set of commercials. And if there happens to be a fumble and a change of possession on the first or second play after that, you get another set of commercials for the changeover. Infuriating!

I love soccer, not only for its continuity, but for the skill involved. I still think of it as the real football, although i’m also a big rugby and Australian rules football fan.

I was surprised to hear about the rule changes in the last two minutes. I can think of no other sport in my experience which actually changes the rules during the game when the clock gets to a certain point.

I have a theory about much of this, which i hope won’t offend any American sports fans out there. It seems to me that, despite some rhetoric about “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game”, American sports rules show an obsession with a clear-cut result. In baseball, they are willing to keep playing all night until someone finally comes out ahead. Football has overtime for every tied game, as do basketball and ice hockey, although a draw is at least possible in hockey as OT lasts only five minutes, except in the post-season.(and yes, i know hockey is Canadian originally, not US)

By contrast, tied scores are relatively common in rugby, even more so in soccer and field hockey. Cricket surely presents the ultimate in lack of closure, with the very real possibility of a test match between two national teams lasting for five days (about 30 hours of play) without a result.

The level of specialization in American sport is also something new to someone coming from abroad. In games like soccer and rugby, the players who take the field are generally out there for the whole time, and have to play both “offense” and “defense”, in the American parlance. There are limited opportunities for interchange, but the idea of someone who is specifically a “kicker”, or a “place kicker”, or a “punt-returner”, or a tackler, is alien to these sports whch require players to be, it seems to me, more versatile.

Similarly in baseball, the need for a designated hitter is a mystery to me, as is the idea of a pinch hitter, as well as the idea that the guy who pitches the ball shouldn’t have to bat as well (i know there are AL and NL differences here). Part of the fun of cricket is waching the bowlers (our term for pitcher), who are often useless batters, try and score runs with the bat. The DH seems to be little but an excuse for some steroid monster with no real athletic ability to get up there and hit home runs. But what do i know? Plenty of people seem to love them. Although, arrogant as he is, i was happy to see a real ballplayer like Barry Bonds break the home run record.

Again, i should reiterate that i like American sports, but i think that many of the conventions that they have adopted over time actually make the game less exciting, and shortchange the people who really matter in all this - the fans.

5

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mhendo *
**Thanks for your input.

That’s because you’re not watching the game right. The commercials are when you go to the bathroom, run an errand, perform some task that the lady is bugging you about during the game, get a beer, get a snakc, etc. Make the commercials work for you. Help them help you.

**

Um, so what’s the theory? I’m actually looking forward to hearing it, and was disappointed that you set up the premise and then didn’t do anything with it :frowning:

**

The purpose of the designated hitter was to increase offensive production in the AL. During the '70s the AL’s popularity was beginning to slide as far as ratings and attendance went. Under the theory that offense = ratings/attendence the AL decided to allow the designated hitter with the intent of having a person specialize in batting in the hopes that increased numbers of home runs would result and hence, more popularity.

A lot of people hate it. Really hate it. I’m not a big fan myself. There have been numerous attempts to get rid of it but the players union is firmly against it since it gives many players who can’t field anymore (bad knees, whatever) but who can still hit well the opportunity to keep playing.

The DH I’ll have to disagree. It’s all part of the sport and strategy. Switch batters, pitchers, runners, etc. Pull double switches. Good fun.

6

I agree - commercials are part of the game.

Besides, the commercials are often fun to watch, especially since they are frequently designed to appeal to men.

7

You’re right, of course. I suppose what i wanted, more than anything, was a sense of whether American sports fans really do feel the overwhelming need for a result, or whether the powers-that-be in the sporting world have made that decision for you?

I suppose i could offer some half-arsed theory about Americans being egomaniancs obsessed with victory, or ignoramuses who can’t watch sport for the simple delight of seeing a good game. But that would be a stupid resort to reductionist stereotyping. The American sport fans i have met are, on the whole, no more or less ego-driven, ignorant, or intelligent than sport fans in other countries.

I once read a rather tongue-in-cheek article which surmised that the lack of popularity enjoyed by soccer in America is related to its essentially communal nature, and the difficulty of standing out as an individual in the way that baseballers or footballers can. The author related this to the historical strength of the idea of rugged individualism in America, and the lack of interest in socialism and communally-oriented activities in the US.

Now, entertaining as the article was, i don’t really buy this argument. First of all, there is plenty of opportunity to show individual brilliance in soccer; also, baseball moves like double-plays, sacrifice fly balls etc. show considerable team-spiritedness. And so do many plays in basketball, football, and hockey.

I would be interested to know what people would think , for example, about a game of NFL football in which the same players played on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, rather than changing over on a change of possession. This would require that an offensive linesman also know how to be, for example, a defensive tackle. Obviously this would halve the rosters of all the teams, but i’m just doing this as an interesting exercise, not as a call for fewer professional sportsmen.

Moving to baseball now, another thing that really amazes me is the way that the schedule is determined in the major leagues. By my calculations, from the Major League Baseball website, the Baltimore Orioles (my home team since coming to the US) played Boston, Tampa Bay, NY Yankees, and Toronto 19 times each. Some other AL teams were played six times (e.g. Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota), and some nine (e.g. Anaheim, Seattle, Oakland). Most NL teams were not played at all, and of those that were, one (Philadelphia) was played six times, while the others (Montreal, NY Mets, Atlanta, Florida) were played three times each.

If there’s a logic to all this, then i’m afraid it’s escaping me. Just about every other sport competition in the world (outside the US) follows one of two systems:

  1. A “knockout”, in which one loss eliminates you from the competition, and the eventual winner is the person/team that wins every match. Examples include the pro tennis circuit, and soccer “cups” like the FA Cup.

  2. A regular season, sometimes followed by a series of finals. In this format, care is usually taken to ensure that, during the regular season, every team plays every other team an equal number of times, and also an equal numbers of times at home and away.

For example, the English Premier League Soccer contains 20 teams; each team plays every other team once at home, and once away for a total of 38 games in the regular season. The winner of the premiership is the team on top at the end of these games.

The Australian Rules football season has a similar regular season, but it is followed by a post-season in which the top eight teams compete in type of knockout, with the last two meeting in a Grand Final to decide the season champion.

It seems to me that any system in which every team does not face every other team an equal number of times during the course of a season leaves itself open to the charge that the best team does not in fact emerge victorious. Of course, this can often be said of other systems too, but i have always thought that the minimum requirement should be that each team gets to test itself against all opposition.

There are 30 major league baseball teams. To me, the most logical arrangement would have each team play every other team twice at home and twice away, for a total of 116 games, or three times home and away for a total of 174 games. I suppose if you really have to keep the season at exactly 162 games, some sort of compromise could be reached whereby some teams are played four times in total, and others are played five. But at least this would even out the season a bit and make it more logical.

One final gripe. Why do American sports champions always refer to themselves as World Champions? Yes, yes, i know that no basketball team outside the US is going to beat the Lakers; that no baseball team outside the US is likely to beat the Yankees; and that no football team outside the US will beat the Ravens.

But no hurling team outside of Ireland is likely to beat the Irish hurling champions; and no Australian rules football team outside of Australia is likely to beat the Brisbane Lions. But the term “world champions” is never used.

I hope that all the Americans on this board realise that i offer these criticisms and questions in a truly sporting spirit, not as an unreflective diatribe against all things American. I wouldn’t be living here if i didn’t like the place. :slight_smile:

8

Just a note since you may not know this, but a football game can end up tied if nobody scores in overtime. That’s during the regular season. During the playoffs, there can be an unlimited number of overtimes until someone scores.

Another thing you may not have heard since you’ve only been in the States for a year… There’s an old saying that goes:

“A tie is like kissing your sister. It’s nice, but it doesn’t mean much.”

I guess if they figure that they’re going to put out all that effort, then somebody ought to win.

By the way, I love Aussie rules football, and I had a fun time watching Australia play New Zealand in a criket match when I was “down under” a few years ago. I wish baseball pitchers could mess with the ball like cricket bowlers do. It’d make for some interesting at-bats. :slight_smile:

9

I think I’d rather see players get really, really good at one position instead of splitting their attention between both sides of the ball. Having watched a couple of Arena Football League games, where virtually everyone plays two-way, I can’t say I find it overly interesting.

10

**

I’d rather see a winner and a loser come out of any sporting game. It is exciting when two teams which are so good attempt to score in overtime. It is boring when they shake hands and say “good game” and walk away.

**

That’s what is known as “Iron Man” football. In middle school our team was so small that I played offensive center, defensive nose or tackle, and I was also on kick off, kick off receive, and punt return. Since profesional teams have plenty of money there’s no reason for them to do this. Especially since it would substantially increase the odds of a key player being injured. There’s no reason to have Troy Aikman or Brett Farve playing defensive safety.

I know some people laugh and say American football is wimply and nothing like rugby. But I’m not quite sure how big rugby players get when compared to some of the 300 pound monsters they have in the NFL.
Marc

11

It’s interesting that specialisation is so easily accepted in football and yet so maligned in baseball. If baseball were to take the concept of specialisation as far as football has and introduce a batting team and a fielding team with unlimited interchange of substitutes, I have no doubt that, despite the quality of hitting and fielding improving, there would be a massive public outcry.

I guess a lot of this stems from the fact that professional baseball is much older and more greatly revered than professional football (which has, for a longtime, taken a backseat to it’s collegiate cousin in terms of popularity). I guess there are also practicality concerns since a two-way player in baseball may increase his chances of injury but the chances are still miniscule compared to those of a two-way player in football.

There are so big boys in Rugby too. Welsh forward Craig Quinnell tips the scales at 275 pounds and Jonah Lomu, the All-Blacks winger is around 260. Having played both games, I can say that they are completely different and thus require different skills and physical attributes.

American football can have 300 pound plus linemen because they are not required to run up and down the full length of the field and the most important factor at the line of scrimmage is the brute force and power you can exercise in a short time and distance.

American football originally started off with no padding and helmets but these were introduced (along with the 1 yard neutral zone) to reduce the fatalities which were common up to that point. Rugby League and Union may have tackling and rucking and mauling but it has no equivalent line of scrimmage where a group of very large men rear themselves up and smash into each other a hundred times a game.

From personal experience, I can also say that the shoulder pads players wear are primarily there to allow the players to hit harder without breaking collarbones and separating shoulders and the rest of the padding worn rarely affords much protection at all. In fact, the helmet is the only piece of protection that is usually effective against a hit unless you are being hit shoulder to shoulder.

The hitting in American Football is inevitably harder and more frequent than that in the Rugby codes and the general level of violence is much more intense. The fact that so many concussions still occur despite the use of very heavy and protective helmets is a testament to this.

12

ACK! That’s a horrible idea! Football (like any sport) is about winning. It would be no good to have a key offensive player (a QB in most cases, or a RB, or even a WR) out on the field the whole time. I don’t think anybody could really take that kind of physical pounding, but even more than that, the risk of injuries is too severe. It’s one thing when your favorite WR breaks his leg in two places while catching the ball, it would be quite another if your favorite WR injured himself trying to make a tackle.

I’ve always liked the 2-min warning. I watched football before I ever got into basketball. My first basketball season I was constantly annoyed by the fact there was not a 2-Min Warning. Like someone else said, help the commercials help you.

13

Actually, there is a degree of specialization in baeball. Pitching roles have become more specialized as time went on (starter, long-relief, short-relief, set-up, and closer) and the other positions became less specialized. It used to be that shortstop and second base were defensive specialists who weren’t expected to hit well. This has all gotten blurred lately.

Part of the reason for the acceptance of specialization in football but not so much in baseball is indeed the risk of getting hurt. Good quarterbacks are in short supply and if they were to play defense as well, the chances of them getting hurt more often would significantly increase. No one wants to see games where a crap quarterback is forced to play because the good one got hurt. That’s the reason for the roughing the passer, QB slide on runs past the line of scrimmage, and other QB protections. Baseball doesn’t have that increase of injury likelihood.

Also it has to do with the historical, as well. Football has always allowed unlimited substitutions. This is part of what makes it great. You get to watch people start in different formations, empty out the backfield and stick in some extra receivers, etc. Unlimited substitutions in a start/stop game like football lends itself to substitutions.

Baseball on the other hand has always had the rule (AFAIK) that once a player is taken out of the lineup he can’t come back in. This is also a part of what makes baseball great. The strategy of maybe taking out your good pitcher to put in a pinch hitter becomes more difficult since you then lose that pitcher for the remainder of the game. Same thing with pinch runners. It’s all a gamble. It could end up screwing you in the end. But yeah, the rule that once a player is taken out of a game he can’t come back really hampers specialization. The DH rule is a fudge on the idea of limited substitutions and is why a lot of people don’t like it.

By the way, earlier I accidentally said that I like the DH, I meant that I like the rules allowing PH (pinch hitter).

I’d also like to address scheduling for a second.

Well, your first problem is that you have two leagues within major league baseball. The National League and the American League originally started as two completely separate institutions. After a while, they decided that the winners of each individual league championship would then play each other for a “world championship.” They could say this because we were really the only ones playing baseball. (Incidentally, I think the idea of the world championship in most sports in the US comes from the original baseball World Series).

This was the status quo for a while and after a time the two leagues began to integrate rules and become closer. While there was one commissioner for everyone, the leagues were still pretty autonomous. This is why one league can have a DH and the other not. But during this team no team in the NL ever played a team in the AL until the World Series.

A few years ago, interleague play was instituted (again to much outcry). This meant that in the middle of the season one division in one league would play series against the equivalent division in the other league. That’s why most NL teams do not meet AL teams.

The unbalanced schedule was just recently instituted this year, again, to much outcry. Previous to this year (and interleague) each team in each league played every other team in the league the same amount of times. Interleague sort of messed this up, since teams in the AL west would play teams in the NL west, while teams in the AL east wouldn’t. The decision to just say screw it and play a blatantly unbalanced schedule was made in recognition of teh problems that interleague play was bringing, as well as attempting to make the division races more exciting.

The baseball postseason is made up of four teams from each league. Three of the four are the division winners in each league, and the last one is a wild card, or the team with the best record that didn’t win their division. The unbalanced schedule deliberately scheduled more games between teams in the same division to heighten the interest in the division races. It does, however, make it a bit unfair for the wildcard since a team from a weak division would have a better chance than a team from a strong division.

All in all, though, most people care at first then get over it once they realize that it’s really not so bad. Most teams also don’t really care that much. While it may bug them a bit in the back of their mind, they just realize that it just means they’ll have to do a bit more to get to the postseason is all. I think it sort of speaks to the traditional American habit of taking what life gives you and doing the best you can with it.

BTW, realignment is in the works for baseball in the near future, so we’ll see what happens with that.

14

To Neurotik:

All of what you said in your last post is perfectly clear, and makes the whole thing a bit more understandable.

It’s obvious that the specialization in football has much to do with worries about injury, but IMHO you really hit the nail on the head when you talked about the stop/start nature of the game. Yesterday’s Ravens/Packers game was still going at around 4.30 in the afternoon, after a 1.00pm start. Maybe what i’ve really been complaining about with respect to football is this aspect of the game.

I have been brought up with various football codes (soccer, rugby union, rugby league, and Australian Rules), all of which have either 40 or 45 minutes per half (Aussie Rules has four shorter quarters), and most of which generally manage to get the whole game finished in about 90 to 110 minutes (80-90 minutes of playing time, plus 10-15 for half-time breaks). A particularly bad injury/injuries can stretch the game out, if someone needs to be carried off the field etc. The idea that a game that is officially 60 minutes’ long can actually take three and a half hours is something that i’m still adjusting to.

There is little doubt, it seems to me, that the specialization in football makes for some incredibly entertaining plays, with massive guys in blocking and central tackling positions, and amazingly fast and athletic guys in the wide and deep positions, all focusing on another bloke who can throw the ball like a bullet. As i said in my OP, i like NFL and any bitching i do isn’t going to stop me watching it. But there is a trade-off, with the specialization and the stop/start nature of the game often making for a less exciting game overall, in a particular way.

There is something about a good rugby or Aussie rules or soccer match that seems unrepeatable in NFL. The fast and flowing nature of the games (especially soccer and Aussie rules) means that there is often a constant and unbroken period of excitement during each half or quarter, during which you literally cannot take your eyes off the game for fear of missing something. A game of soccer can have a huge flurry of goalmouth action at one end, then a beautiful series of flowing passes can have the ball up the other end in moments, for an equally exciting attacking raid on the other team. Such exchanges can, in the best games, go back and forth for ages virtually without interruption. Of course, all these football codes have boring games - what sport doesn’t? - but it is their continuity which makes them so appealling. Don’t get me wrong, i’ve seen exciting NFL games, but they’re exciting in a different way.

I’m less convinced about your arguments involving baseball. It still strikes me as a very specialized sport compared to cricket. If baseball were to follow cricket’s style, there would be nine players only taking the field, and you would have to juggle the team to determine how many of them you wanted to be specialized batters, and how many pitchers you wanted. For example, if you thought you could get away with a single pitcher for the whole game, you could play eight batters; but you might decide you need two pitchers, and hence only seven batters. Of course, pitchers would all have to take their place in the bating line-up.

Cricket teams, which have 11 players, usually contain five or six specialist batsmen, one wicketkeeper (like a catcher) who can also generally bat pretty well, and four or five specialist bowlers, whose batting skills can range from pretty good (and they are then referred to as an all-rounder) to extremely awful.

Now, i’m sure i’ll get similar comments to those that have already appeared on this thread, saying that a much better game results if you have specialists in every position the whole time. But it seems to me that this argument relies on a fairly narrow conception of what constitutes a “good game”. Part of the attraction of cricket is watching the bowlers try to bat, and no cricket player gets a bigger cheer from the crowd than a bowler who is normally a hopeless batsman but who manages on a particular occasion to put in a fine batting performance and save his team from defeat. Asking people to do more than one thing does not, in my opinion, result in a worse game, just a different one.

And why not go the whole hog in baseball? Have nine designated hitters whose only job is to step up to the plate, bash the ball, and run the bases. And then have a totally different group of players on the field when the other team is at bat. Have specialist pitchers. Have a specialist catcher. And have specialist basemen, short stop and outfielders who never even get to touch a bat. Surely that would make it all even more perfect? I’m being flippant here, of course, but the logic could theoretically be extended this far.

Now to the schedule. Everything you said makes sense. I suppose my two-cents’ worth would be that they should either keep the two leagues totally separate and then have each champion play one another for the world series at the end of the season. Or integrate them fully. This half-way system they have seems ludicruous; there’s no logical reason why the AL east should play the NL east and not the NL west etc. etc.

I understand the way the baseball postseason works, and once the regular season is over and the finals series begins i think the whole thing operates very logically. It’s only the regular season (all 162 games of it) that doesn’t make sense. Your point about the unfairness of the unbalanced system regarding the wildcard seems valid. I’m just wondering though, why does scheduling teams from the same division to play each other more often heighten interest in the division race? Whether they’re playing each other or some totally different team, a win still moves them up the ladder, and a loss still leaves them where they were. Although i should add that my favourite north American sport, ice hockey, adopts a similar strategy. Each team plays those in its own division 5 times; the other teams in its own conference 4 times; and those from the other conference 1 or 2 times. But everyone plays everyone at least once.

Near the end, you say:

Well, if it was just “life” or nature or something that gave you this stuff, i would agree with you. But professional sports are controlled by people, and people can be made to change their mind. I’ve been to a few Orioles games this season (a fairly depressing experience, given their performance), and have heard quite a few fans complaining about various aspects of the schedule, the rules etc. I wonder how widespread this irritation is. Although i will admit that if sport fans the world over share one thing, it is the tendency to bitch about players and about the administration.

15

BobT

Actually, the two-minute warning served a useful purpose in the old days when the official time was maintained by one of the officials on the field - he used to actually discharge a small pistol to signal the expiration of time at the end of the first half and the end of the game. Before the new technology, they couldn’t keep the scoreboard clock synchronized with what the official on the field was doing, so they had the two-minute warning to let everyone know OFFICIALLY that only two minutes were left. (Cowboy fans continue to insist that time had run out before GB scored in the 196? championship game between GB and Dallas played in January in Green Bay. Because the official time was kept by an official on the field, the extreme temperature slowed down the stop watch, extending the official 60-minutes by several seconds – enough for GB to score the winning TD).

By the way, why doesn’t soccer put the offical time on the scoreboard?

16

Amen. For quite a long time, this is what they did, and many of us wish they did this still. I should note, however, that the plan is to eventually rotate things so that one year, the AL east will play the NL east, and they’ll play the NL central the next year, and the NL west the year after that. The entire rational for doing this interleague play to begin with is just that fans in an AL city used to never see NL teams, and there was money to be made in changing this.

Basically, because a win against a team ahead of you in your division automatically moves you one game up, whereas a win against another team may or may not do so. So playing within your division more often means teams may more readily widen or narrow the gap.

17

Because “All Time Champions of the Entire Universe” sounded too sophomoric.

I think it’s because in professional soccer time is added on the end. The refs keep track of all the “down” time (injuries, chasing the ball down out of bounds, substitutions, etc.) and add it on the end…presumably so that one team doesn’t try to constantly kick the ball out in order to eat up time on the field.

At least that’s what I theorized after watching a pro match a few weeks ago.

18

To be honest, having grown up on start/stop games like baseball and football, I really don’t have the attention span to handle the continuity of soccer or rugby or australian rules. Cricket I like, though.

See, with most modern baseball teams, though, you have 8 all-rounders and the pitcher, which is growing into an all-rounder position too. This is why I think baseball is a bit less specialized than cricket.

The regular players for the most part are strong in both fielding and batting (Jim Edmonds, Ichiro Suzuki, Roberto Alomar, Pudge Rodrigues, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, etc.). There are a few that are better at defense or offense, and a lot of times a manager will have to figure out what he needs when he puts a player in, same as cricket. Do you go with the better defensive outfielder or do you want the guy who’s going to give you a boost on the offensive end? That’s why you’ll see a lot of players switching from game to game in a position. Again, I think the pitchers should have to pitch all the time, the DH rule is an abomination. But I also like the pinch hitter rule where a manager will have to weight the options of keeping a good pitcher in the lineup to keep pitching or take him out for a better batter.

Wait until you see a pitcher make a clutch hit or homer. The same sort of reaction will result.

I think we’re agreeing here. I don’t think that asking more players to do more than one thing will result in a worse game (in the case of baseball). I’m supporting that. But I’m also supporting the thrill of watching the strategy of replacing certain players at certain times of the game with pinch hitter/runners/whatever. It’s fun because the person replaced can’t come back into the game, so you have to choose carefully cuz it can come back to bite you later.

Well, again, there really is only time in the schedule for one division interleague per year. To have the AL east play each NL division would eat up a lot of time. So that’s why they have only one.

And I’d agree that interleague is ridiculous, but really, it’s pretty popular with the fans, which is why they keep doing it. At all times think of the bottom line. Interleague raises attendance and ratings. Especially in areas like Chicago, NY, LA and the Bay Area where you have two home town teams, one in each league.

I would imagine that they will be integrated fully within the next 20-30 years. But maybe not.

See g8rguy’s post. That pretty much explains it. When it’s coming down the stretch you want the guys from the same division playing each other, because that’s when standings leads take off or get destroyed. For instance, in the east, if it’s coming down to the wire between NY and Boston, if Boston is playing Anaheim and wins there’s no guarantee that it will change the standings because the Yankees could win against Seattle, too. But if Boston and NY are playing down the wire, each game will cause a change in the standings one way or the other. So the idea of having the division play each other more often gives the races a bit more excitement because that’s when teams can climb on each other.

19

This is really complete speculation on my part, but I have always thought it came out of a rather profound difference in philosophy between European and US sporting events.

I spent time watching the occasional soccer match in Europe back in the early '80s (Soccer Made in Germany, narrated by Toby Charles). It seemed to me that the general attitude of the match organizers was, “We’re going to play a football match here and now. If anybody feels like coming to watch, fine. We’re doing this for Sport, and will ignore the gathered masses.” Now, obviously, gate receipts could not have been so far from their minds as that, but the atmosphere seemed to be one of ivory tower isolation from the crowd. Relatively little catering was done to the crowd, and the idea of actually pausing the match to permit television commercials is inconceivable. “We allow them to watch this match, and we dictate the terms. How dare they suggest otherwise?”

There’s really nothing that would have prevented having the stadium clock be official and letting referee signal the operator to start/stop it - this is in fact just what they do in the NFL (with a backup on the field should the stadium clock malfunction). But FIFA didn’t see the need, perhaps viewing such theatrics as cheap fodder for the peanut gallery.

American sports (at least the major ones), on the other hand, appear to me to take the attidude that the “peanut gallery” (especially the TV audience) is the entire reason that the game is being played, and that keeping the official clock hidden from view is repellent. In Major League Soccer’s first few seasons, they took this view and used the stadium clock. However, I believe pressure for complete adherence to the Laws from FIFA prompted a change to the usual hidden clock.

Admittedly, things seem to be “Americanizing” around the world. FIFA, notably, is lightening up, dressing their officials in bright golds, reds and silvers rather than simple black. But some traditions die hard, and the on-field clock seems to me to be one of them.

20

keno asked:

and PunditLisa replied:

That’s pretty much right. In all my griping, there was one aspect of NFL and NHL that i neglected to mention. It seems to me that stopping and starting the clock at certain times (i.e. in football, when the runner runs out of bounds etc.) does reduce the chance of the leading team just wasting time and making things really hard for the opposition to come back.

In rugby, for example, if a team is a few points ahead with little time remaining, they can kick the ball out of play (perfectly legal) and then walk reeeeaaalllly slooowly to the resulting line-out. There is no official time allotted for each play, as in the NFL, and the referee has to use his discretion to determine whether time-wasting is going on. If he feels it is, he can warn the offending team, and even issue a penalty against them.

Similar delaying tactics can be used in soccer, and i think that the reason that the referee keeps time directly is that it is left to him to determine when such delaying tactics are within the law and the spirit of the game, and when they are not. There seems to be a fairly consistent formula for adding time on, however, because if you watch a televised soccer match in England, at the end of regulation time the commentators will often take a guess at how much additional time will be played, and they are often pretty close. So it seems to me that if you watch the game closely enough, you can tell when something happens for which time will be added on.

brad_d wrote:

I really can’t agree with your analysis of the differences here. It seems to me that European soccer is actually doing more to cater to the enjoyment of the fans than American sport. Refusing to pause play in order to accommodate commercials has a couple of important consequences, as far as i can see:

  1. It makes the game much more continuous and exciting for those who have paid good money to actually go to the ground and watch it in person.

  2. It often forces TV stations to show large portions of the game commercial-free, stopping for ads when someone is injured, when a goal is scored, or at other stoppages in play. You find that when watching soccer, most of the ads come at half-time, giving you enough time to get up, go to the bathroom, get a drink or whatever, and come back in time for the second half.

You say in brackets that “the TV audience” is the entire reason the game is being played. If only this were true. It seems to me sometimes that the advertisers are the main reason for the game. This sometimes appears to be the case in Europe also, but i think that equating commercial-determined game stoppages with a desire to cater to the fans is perhaps a somewhat optimistic reading of the situation.

I do think that it would be relatively easy, in this technological day and age, to equip the referee with a watch which could send a signal to a large clock that fans could see. Although part of the excitement in the last minutes of a soccer game is when the fans of the leading team are praying to hear the final whistle, and the fans of the losing team are hoping it won’t blow so their team can get a tying goal.

In Australia, the refusal of rugby league to accommodate the commercial imperatives of television has had a couple of consequences. When i was last in Australia (last year) the rugby league match of the day was not shown live, but was delayed by an hour or so (it usually started at 2.30pm, with TV coverage beginning at 4.00pm). This allowed them to put in as many ads as they wanted without the TV audience missing any of the action. This, of course, means that a 90 minute game ends up taking two hours to watch on TV. But if you go out to the ground, you don’t have to put up with unnecessary stoppages designed to allow more ads to be shown.

Australian rules games are generally shown live, but there is enough time after a goal is scored (quite a frequent occurrence in Aussie rules) to have one ad. And they also show commercials at quarter-time, half-time, and three-quarter time.