In the last few years, my interest in football waned and ultimately went the way of the dodo. At first, I wasn’t really sure why this was, considering my love of baseball only increased at the same time. A recent epiphany, however, laid the reason bare.
As I realized, it’s all about the commercials.
In football, the game is run by commercials. Play is stopped for commercials, and advertisements run at every possible intermission. Without these incessant breaks, a typical game would likely take little more than an hour.
Baseball, by comparison, airs commercials in only three circumstances (rain delays notwithstanding): between innings, at pitching changes, and, on a rare occasion, when a player is hurt. Should one side of an inning run 45 minutes without a pitching change, fans are treated to an uninterrupted 45 minutes of play. Rather than let advertising dictate how the game is played, baseball placed its integrity above financial gains.
Given the myriad distractions available during football’s interminable commercial interruptions, it’s no wonder I’ve lost interest in the game.