Kansas football: Win or lose, games are too long
By Stan Unruh
Kansas football fans suffered through two long home games to open the 2017 season. Win or lose, some are not happy with the length of the games.
Kansas football fans who sat through 4 quarters of Saturday’s Central Michigan game are still uncomfortable. I am not taking about the final score but the game lasted almost 4-hours. While the success in the season opener was great, the length of time to see either game was a literal pain to some.
The win over SEMO lasted 3-hours and 33 minutes. All major sports are considering the length of time for their contests. Major league baseball made changes this season to reduce the length of their games. I’m not sure it made a difference.
I like college football. On the other hand, I do not like sitting for over 3-hours to watch any sporting event. A triple overtime Kansas basketball win might be the exception.
The Pacific 12 Conference believes games are too long and halftime is too long, according to Zach Helfand in the Los Angeles Times. The conference is going to reduce halftime by five minutes. At KU, that may not be good for the Marching Jayhawks. Over the past few football seasons, they are actually the best show in town.
The Pac 12 pilot program to reduce halftime is for select non-conference games. As a matter of fact, the conference is also cutting television commercials. While a shorter halftime seems reasonable, cutting the number of commercials will impact somebody’s bottom line. However, it might help a viewers’ bottom. At least someone is taking action.
If fans are tuning out games at the half, somebody needs to take action. I realize commercials fund our sport watching habit. However, there are ways to make changes to accommodate advertisers, keep viewers and not lose revenue. We need some social media marketing grads who are also Kansas football fans to come up with some ideas.
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Car races, some major golf tournaments and other sporting events run ads while never leaving the action. Replay officials need to speed up what they do too. There are many ways to make changes that won’t impact the fan experience in a positive way. It’s time for someone in the Big 12 to take a look at what can be done sooner rather than later.