Soccer: Not Suited for American Television

One thing that is blatantly obvious when watching soccer on North American television is that it does not fit easily into the television advertising paradigm. There are no predictable breaks in the action. Soccer, at the FIFA level, two halves of forty five minutes. The game official handles the ball as little as possible. For example, if the ball goes out of bounds, the game official does not need to hand off the ball to the player. As much as possible, there is little to interrupt the flow of the play.

The question becomes ‘where do you put the advertising?’. It is unusual for a sporting event to play on for forty five minutes without a pause in the action. And this is an opportunity to present a commercial. If the advertising were to take a minute or two or three away from the soccer action, the fans would be annoyed. Very annoyed. - In some parts of the planet, if this occurred, there would be riots. Seriously.

North American sports lend themselves to commercial interruption. Think of the pauses in sports such as football, baseball, basketball, hockey and so on. Even the spectators at the televised games expect a ‘television interruption’ and play resumes after the commercials are aired.

In soccer, there may be a pause for an injury. However, the length of time for that pause is not predictable. And the injury is important information to the viewer. It is a decision point in the game and to place a commercial there would not be wise. So therein lies a major hurdle for presenting soccer on television. Advertisers want predictable air time when the viewer will not be antagonized with an advertising pause. During a soccer game, those moments are rare.

Catherine