When you sit on the couch to watch your favorite team, there’s one thing you should notice about the experience. It’s not the new helmets, hats or possibly the new turf. No, it’s the ratio of commercial time to actual game time.
It’s no fluke. According to FiveThirtyEight and its UT Austin sports analytics course, the average NFL broadcast lasts three hours and 23 minutes but also includes 50 minutes of commercial airtime. For the MLB, it’s no different. The average MLB postseason game lasts three hours and 45 minutes but only shows around 23 minutes of actual game time (this does not include commentary and game stoppages).
If you’re in one of the rare groups of people who actually enjoy learning about the official tire sponsor of the NFL, kudos to you. The league is really doing wonders in that department.
But if you’re an average fan, like me, I’m guessing you feel that every sports league nowadays traded away its soul for an extra buck.
I just want watching sports to be a fun task in and of itself. I want to live in a world where teams actually see the fans as supporters and not suckers who’ll give the shirts off their backs for a single ticket to a game.
But it’ll never be fun by itself, because sports today revolve around money. Not only are team owners trying to maximize profits from fans, but there’s also the invasion of sports betting companies profiting from fans, further ruining the love of the game.
Sports have become a life and death situation for some, as many sports bettors suffer from gambling addictions. This is worsened by the fact that there remains little government oversight to ensure the budding industry follows the rules. Even our own university, LSU, toyed with the idea of sports betting, partnering with Caesar’s Sportsbook to advertise betting across campus starting in 2021, until that agreement was terminated earlier this year.
Players often feel the same way about money. Full disclosure, I side with players and their struggle for fair compensation. I understand the risks and intense training regimen involved with playing a sport like football. They deserve security in life as much as any other worker.
But it’s concerning for some athletes to say that money, not winning titles and performing their best on the field, court or pitch, matters most to them.
De’Aaron Fox, starting NBA point guard for the Sacramento Kings, sided with the players who believe the business side of sports matters the most. On X (Twitter), Fox posted, “Lol everybody wants to win but at the same time y’all know sports are jobs right?”
Fox has a point, but like with all jobs, productivity is a necessary part. Sports is different from other careers, because you can’t work for eight hours a day and expect fair compensation for it. Being an athlete requires not only dedication but also production. In baseball, you need to hit and not whiff the ball. In football, you need to throw completions and gain yardage. That is why athletes are given multi-million dollar contracts.
Winning games and being the best version of themselves during games is what athletes should focus on. Financial rewards will follow if they keep that mentality.
Everyone seems to be chasing after that bag while fans are left in the dark. That shouldn’t be the case. Fans should be able to afford to watch their favorite team play at the highest level it can; players should get paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work; and owners should be able to profit from their teams.
With the commercialization of American sports, there’s a lack of vision and soul in sports today. It doesn’t spark as much inspiration as it did back in childhood. Raw human emotion should be the bedrock of sports, not analytics and greed.
Nathaniel Dela Peña is a 20-year-old political science and history senior from Alexandria.
