Challenge of the day: Name one sporting event on television that is not at least 2 hours

American Ninja Warrior.

You're embarrassing yourself, bro. All my OCR buddies insist Spartan races should be back on NBC and shown in entirety where we can watch every top athlete do every obstacle....

Not sustainable, dudes and dudettes. Just because you have a mold for televised sports and it works for those sports doesn't mean it has to the mold for something that everyone else in the world finds boring.

And FWIW, OCR is tons less boring than track and field, brofus.

Ummm....ever heard of jousting?

Boxing

Look at what Redbull is doing with sports/entertainment delivery. That's more the future that anything network TV is doing.

wejo, you might as well be fighting for Battle of the Network Stars here. Attention spans, and overall focus of the US population is changing. That's why there's no issue seeing soccer from Europe all over network TV Sunday mornings, and why "sports" such as NASCAR are clinging to life.

Did you really think MMA fighting would make boxing irrelevant? Do you understand that money/betting keeps (especially collegiate) basketball alive?

We used to gather and watch lions eat the Christians back in the day. Dance 'Til You Drop was a thing, we no longer see Distance Plunging in the Olympics, and your smart phone can show you anything you want to see. As long as it's still a thing.

The more telling fact right now is that in East Africa, you've got 100 or so guys who could run faster than 2:11.30 later today if you asked - while in the US right now you've got nobody.

You're omitting a key distinction: In the sports you cite, there's not a whole new cast of competitors to learn about and get invested in every several minutes. A soccer telecast isn't a series of permutations of the basic activity; it's one sustained narrative.

For us track fans, that's not a barrier. For casual fans, I suspect it is.

I've never actually seen one but I can't imagine a game of basketball lasts two hours.

officially, it is four quarters of 12 minutes each but I guess there's stoppage, time outs, intervals, and adverts too so, maybe, 90 minutes. does this actually last more than 2 hours?

when I was visiting Houston several years ago I went to watch a game of American Football and I kid you not, I have watched games of chess that finished quicker. they seem to have perfected the art of sucking all the enjoyment out of it. never. again.

cheers.

I had some Irish friends in college so I watched the All-Ireland finals for hurling and football. I was surprised both were like 70 minutes. Not arguing the point about 90 minutes vs. 2 hours. 70 minutes felt too short for what was supposedly their Super Bowl.

Does soccer take 2 hours on TV? I'm thinking 90 minutes but don't watch it on TV.

joho wrote:

Does soccer take 2 hours on TV? I'm thinking 90 minutes but don't watch it on TV.

Do you not read the posts you're replying to?

Bowling sometimes is pretty compact

Biathlon and nordic skiing on the Olympic Channel

joho wrote:

Does soccer take 2 hours on TV? I'm thinking 90 minutes but don't watch it on TV.

45 minutes, 15 minute halftime, 45 minutes = 1 hr 45 minutes from start to finish of actual playing time. The broadcast slot is 2 hours total TV time with post game recap and what not.

cotton shirt wrote:

I've never actually seen one but I can't imagine a game of basketball lasts two hours.

officially, it is four quarters of 12 minutes each but I guess there's stoppage, time outs, intervals, and adverts too so, maybe, 90 minutes. does this actually last more than 2 hours?

when I was visiting Houston several years ago I went to watch a game of American Football and I kid you not, I have watched games of chess that finished quicker. they seem to have perfected the art of sucking all the enjoyment out of it. never. again.

cheers.

Football is 5 seconds of fury with 40 seconds of rest. Rinse repeat for 60min of game time.

Track is primarily an Olympic sport, therefore it has no relevance. Any sport in which your biggest competition is the Olympics is irrelevant as far as being a watchable big money sport. It’s a niche sport with huge participation numbers but little acclaim.

How to change it? Americanize it. Forget the IAAF event exists.

Alan

Alan

Hardloper wrote:

I had some Irish friends in college so I watched the All-Ireland finals for hurling and football. I was surprised both were like 70 minutes. Not arguing the point about 90 minutes vs. 2 hours. 70 minutes felt too short for what was supposedly their Super Bowl.

That is 70 minutes of playing time, when the ball goes dead it restarts instantly.

Ciro wrote:

Hardloper wrote:

I had some Irish friends in college so I watched the All-Ireland finals for hurling and football. I was surprised both were like 70 minutes. Not arguing the point about 90 minutes vs. 2 hours. 70 minutes felt too short for what was supposedly their Super Bowl.

That is 70 minutes of playing time, when the ball goes dead it restarts instantly.

Not sure what you're trying to say. There's stoppage time added like soccer but the TV broadcast is still 90 minutes I think.

Eliminating events is the right direction.

Every even should be eliminated except the 40 yard dash, 100, 400, Mile, 4x100, 4x400, and pole vault. Then IAAF should take over wrestling, and have wrestling on the infield, and a mixed event mile-wrestle, and wrestle-mile. In mile-wrestle, 12 runners race to get top 4, and top 4 immediately go into a king of the mountain style wrestle match. Then an even that is the opposite. Finally, add a ninja warrior course to infield. Then we'd be in business.

wejo wrote:

The Diamond League announced today it's going to drop 4 events (they haven't been announced yet), will turn the 5000 into the 3000 and have the meet have a TV window of 1.5 hours intead of 2 hours.

The thinking seems to be track and field needs to be more compact on TV to be popular.

I don't think anyone has a problem with 2 hour sporting events and think nearly every sporting event on TV is at least 2 hours.

But maybe I'm wrong. What is a popular sporting event on TV that is less than 2 hours.

If the plan is to have 1.5 hours of action with pre/post game for 2 hours I might support it.

Some might say soccer/football is under 2 hours, but it's perfectly designed for 2 hours. Matches game time is about 95 minutes + 15 minute halftime= 110 minutes + a little time for pre/postgame = 2 hours.

Ever heard of Half Marathons, Weldon?

I don't know about the US but here in Europe some of them get plenty of viewers.

Anyway, I dislike this measure by the IAAF. There have been some amazing 10,000 m races on the circuit over the years, let alone 5,000 m ones.

Track running is dead for distance runners. Why sit through 13 or 27 minutes of guys running when only the last ~55 seconds are going to matter? If someone is ahead of the field, it's either 1) they are that much faster and it's not a race, or 2) it's someone that has no business being in front and will be passed with a lap or two to go.

With "ball sports", there is always the chance that in the very next moment something unexpected will happen. You don't get that in track races, especially after routine chasing of world records went away. Someone falling is about all the excitement you can expect, and that isn't exciting at all.

One thing that really hurts is how distance races are videoed. Quite frankly in most shots they don't even look like they are running fast. People like my non-running brother watch and think all they are doing is "jogging" when in reality they might be running 4:15 pace. At least with sprints, its clear the competitors are running all out or nearly so.

As for field events...please. I couldn't give two sh1ts about jumping or throwing something. It is just not interesting in the least to see someone spin and chuck a metal ball down field. Surely 99%+ of the population has no way to relate that to anything they have done before.

Hardloper wrote:

Ciro wrote:

That is 70 minutes of playing time, when the ball goes dead it restarts instantly.

Not sure what you're trying to say. There's stoppage time added like soccer but the TV broadcast is still 90 minutes I think.

Yeah stoppage time is added like soccer. I'm simply that 70-80 minutes at that speed and intensity is very hard.

The full TV coverage for an All-Ireland would certainly be longer than 90 mins.

Rugby sevens. Very popular and very short. Not including halftime its like less than 30 minutes.