What Happens During An NFL Game?

A LOT OF STANDING AROUND … AND COMMERCIALS

By FITSNEWS ||  Our founding editor’s beloved Indianapolis Colts (5-3) travel to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey tonight for a showdown with the New York Giants (3-4).

Colts’ third-year starter Andrew Luck isn’t just our newest man crush, he’s the NFL’s leading passer (2,741 yards in eight games).  Meanwhile Eli Manning is a two-time Super Bowl champ looking to pull his team to .500 on the year in anticipation of making another deep run in the playoffs.

It’s the first time the two elite signal-callers have faced each other …

But this post isn’t about the Colts or the Giants … it’s about what you are actually watching if you (like our founding editor) decide to devote three hours of your life to the ESPN telecast of the game.

Monday Night Football averaged 13.7 million viewers over the 2013 football season – up seven percent from 2012 and the best showing since 2010.  But what exactly are those millions of viewers watching?  You might be surprised what percentage of the telecast is actually devoted to football.

According to one of forty amazing sports info graphics published last month by Vox, if trends hold only 8.3 percent of tonight’s ESPN telecast of the Colts-Giants game will be “gameplay.”  That doesn’t even rank among the top three categories of content and – get this – it’s one-third the amount of screen time that’s devoted to commercials.

Take a look at this fascinating graphic …

(Click to enlarge)

(Pic: Via)

Pretty neat, huh?

Anyway … to view the rest of Vox’s highly informative sports info graphics, click HERE.  And if you don’t mind all the commercials and players standing around, tune into ESPN at 8:30 p.m. EST tonight for the game.

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RAPID REACTION

.@fitsnews Excellent breakdown. Good read for #NFL fans. Take note @nflcommish http://t.co/Ojxxo42S2Q

— Gregg Meeks (@greggmeeks) November 3, 2014