# NFL shifting start time of doubleheaders' 2nd game



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

From AP via Yahoo:

*NFL shifting start time of doubleheaders' 2nd game*


> The NFL announced a scheduling change Thursday aimed at preventing such moments. The league is shifting the start time of the second game of its Sunday TV doubleheaders by 10 minutes to ensure fewer fans miss any of the action on the field.
> 
> The late afternoon matchups on CBS and Fox will kick off at 4:25 p.m. ET instead of 4:15. Late games not on that week's doubleheader network will still start at 4:05.


FULL ARTICLE HERE

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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

What always amazes me is how the late games seem to run longer than the early games. I know some early games run late and overlap the 2nd game... but sometimes the late games go REALLY late.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen an early game run as long as a later game has.


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## Gary Toma (Mar 23, 2006)

The kickoff time for Sunday late afternoon doubleheader games on CBS and FOX will be moved from 4:15 PM ET to 4:25 PM ET, the NFL announced today. The 4:05 PM ET kickoff time for games not on the doubleheader network will remain unchanged.

The 4:25 PM ET kickoff time will reduce instances in which fans miss the end of a 1:00 PM ET game telecast because they must receive the opening kickoff of their home team's late-afternoon game. In addition, fans not in the cities of the late doubleheader opponents will be less likely to miss the beginning of the late doubleheader game.

In researching the kickoff time shift, the NFL analyzed games from the 2009-11 seasons and found that 44 games required part of the audience to be switched to a mandatory doubleheader game kickoff. With a 4:25 PM ET kickoff time, that number that would have been reduced by 66 percent to only 15 games.

Approximately 40 games over the full 2012 season will be impacted by the 10-minute kickoff time shift - with half of those moves coming in games played in Mountain or Pacific time zones with 1:25 PM or 2:25 PM local starts.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

"gct" said:


> The kickoff time for Sunday late afternoon doubleheader games on CBS and FOX will be moved from 4:15 PM ET to 4:25 PM ET, the NFL announced today. The 4:05 PM ET kickoff time for games not on the doubleheader network will remain unchanged.
> 
> The 4:25 PM ET kickoff time will reduce instances in which fans miss the end of a 1:00 PM ET game telecast because they must receive the opening kickoff of their home team's late-afternoon game. In addition, fans not in the cities of the late doubleheader opponents will be less likely to miss the beginning of the late doubleheader game.
> 
> ...


This is the same reasoning given for moving them from 4 to 4:15 in 1998. All it is is a way for them to add more commercial time and make more money. In a year or two, you'll be missing the start of the late games (or end of the early games is if your market must flip for the local team) again.

What I want to know is with this will CBS decide to not run 60 Minutes at all the week they have doubleheaders and mercifully spare everyone who watches their Sunday night shows from having to wait an extra hour or longer now.


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## lokar (Oct 8, 2006)

It is absolutely pathetic on the NFL's part that this discussion even comes up. A lot of other things could be done to reduce this problem such as reduce halftime by a couple of minutes, reduce commercial time, reduce the number of time outs each team gets, etc. Football is so slow I can't bear to watch it live, it is rather telling that the Sunday Ticket short cuts they have condense an entire game to half an hour and you don't miss a play. As it is, when there is an NFL game I want to see, I record it on the DVR and start watching it 90 minutes to 2 hours after the start time. The really sad thing is even doing this, I catch up to the live broadcast about half the time before the end of the game.


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## renbutler (Oct 17, 2008)

But you can also condense an NBA game to 48 minutes, and a baseball game probably even further.

That's just the nature of American sports.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

lokar said:


> Football is so slow I can't bear to watch it live, it is rather telling that the Sunday Ticket short cuts they have condense an entire game to half an hour and you don't miss a play.


If they are reducing it to 30 minutes then you are missing something, though... because each quarter is 15 minutes... so even without all the commercials, there should be 60 minutes of gameplay. To cut it down to a half hour means they cut out more than just commercials.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

"Stewart Vernon" said:


> If they are reducing it to 30 minutes then you are missing something, though... because each quarter is 15 minutes... so even without all the commercials, there should be 60 minutes of gameplay. To cut it down to a half hour means they cut out more than just commercials.


They are cutting out the standing around between each play in which the clock runs. That's all.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

"lokar" said:


> It is absolutely pathetic on the NFL's part that this discussion even comes up. A lot of other things could be done to reduce this problem such as reduce halftime by a couple of minutes, reduce commercial time, reduce the number of time outs each team gets, etc. Football is so slow I can't bear to watch it live, it is rather telling that the Sunday Ticket short cuts they have condense an entire game to half an hour and you don't miss a play. As it is, when there is an NFL game I want to see, I record it on the DVR and start watching it 90 minutes to 2 hours after the start time. The really sad thing is even doing this, I catch up to the live broadcast about half the time before the end of the game.


I have no problem with how "slow" NFL games are. It's just this bs about game times increasing. When we all know it's commercial time that's been added making them later. Yes, I know there are the pass happy teams or sometimes a very long game like the Lions/49ers game was but this was why it was changed to 4:15 to begin with. As far as what you consider slow, college football is way slower and IMO way more boring. I see them routinely taking an hour to play 1 quarter. In the NFL it's about 25-35 minutes. At least to my naked eye it does.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

"renbutler" said:


> But you can also condense an NBA game to 48 minutes, and a baseball game probably even further.
> 
> That's just the nature of American sports.


Not really, they are usually running up and down the court and passing the ball during the "lull." The play clock/game clock doesn't move while guys stand around waiting to start the next play.


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## renbutler (Oct 17, 2008)

NBA games have 48 minutes of clock movement. That's four quarters of 12 minutes each. You can't have more than 48 minutes of gameplay in a non-OT NBA game.


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## lucky13 (Nov 27, 2006)

zimm7778 said:


> What I want to know is with this will CBS decide to not run 60 Minutes at all the week they have doubleheaders and mercifully spare everyone who watches their Sunday night shows from having to wait an extra hour or longer now.


CBS is yards ahead of the other networks in prime-time ratings. _60 Minutes_ is a key part of its ratings strategy. I suspect CBS sees modest runovers (<15 minutes) as a plus, because once by the time _60 Minutes_ ends, the shows on the other nets have already begun; viewers who have stayed on CBS have only one choice on "live" TV.

If this didn't work for CBS, it would do what Fox does, and have a variable-timed post-game show.

I predict that the next change of game times won't be away from 4:25; the 1:00 kickoff will be moved up to 12:45 or so.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

"lucky13" said:


> CBS is yards ahead of the other networks in prime-time ratings. 60 Minutes is a key part of its ratings strategy. I suspect CBS sees modest runovers (<15 minutes) as a plus, because once by the time 60 Minutes ends, the shows on the other nets have already begun; viewers who have stayed on CBS have only one choice on "live" TV.
> 
> If this didn't work for CBS, it would do what Fox does, and have a variable-timed post-game show.
> 
> I predict that the next change of game times won't be away from 4:25; the 1:00 kickoff will be moved up to 12:45 or so.


Yeah but it won't be that anymore. It's been closer to 30 for a long time, and now with kickoff at 4:25 it's going to be closer to 45 minutes or more.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

zimm7778 said:


> They are cutting out the standing around between each play in which the clock runs. That's all.


That's not all that happens during that time, though.

Substitutions happen, and sometimes the offense tries to hurry and snap if they see the defense screwed up... or you see a guy didn't get off the field so one team had too many men on the field.

IF you cut all of that out, then some stuff needs explanation to know what happened.

I'm not a fan of cutting down beyond the actual gameplay time in football. Cutting down below the 60 minutes of clock running is cutting out stuff I might want to see... so I haven't watched any of those cut-downs that air on the NFL Network either.

In basketball you have another problem to contend with... Yes, there are only 48 minutes of timed play... but the clock does stop on out-of-bounds plays (non-scoring ones) so IF you cut out those plays you wouldn't see what happens during an in-bounds play... Fouls and turnovers and other stuff happens with the clock stopped. Also, free throws occur with the clock stopped. Cutting that stuff out would cut out some important things.

Imagine if soccer was cut down to only the actual scoring play... most of the time it is setting up for a scoring play... so in a 90+ minute soccer game, you would cut to what 5 minutes of gameplay if you cut out what was deemed "not necessary"?

I do agree that commercial timeouts have gotten longer... and more of them over the years... and the Super Bowl halftime "extravaganza" has gotten out of hand. College sports has longer halftimes too in the tourney/playoffs/bowl games.


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## zimm7778 (Nov 11, 2007)

"Stewart Vernon" said:


> That's not all that happens during that time, though.
> 
> Substitutions happen, and sometimes the offense tries to hurry and snap if they see the defense screwed up... or you see a guy didn't get off the field so one team had too many men on the field.
> 
> ...


College halftime is longer in general. NFL its 12 minutes, college it seems like 3 hours but I think it's actually 20 minutes maybe? As far as the short cuts, all I'm saying is what they do. Whether the offense rushes up to snap to catch the defense off guard or not there was still a few second lull. All I'm saying is that's what they remove. That's not anyone's fault the "plays" can be all done in under a half hour, it's just the nature of the game. Not defending. Was just informing what it was and what's taken out.


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## mcdrewcarey (Aug 13, 2012)

good move. I hate when they run over and we don't see the end


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