I watch the Premier League (English Soccer), but I just looked up the NFL and it’s true there too. Matches start at the same time. WHY?! I would love to watch multiple matches – all I can do is pick one or kinda watch multiple screens? Surely it would also be better for business? There are ten Premier League matches a weekend. The earliest kick-off is 12:30, the latest is 20:00. There’s space for 5 matches a day!
i.e. 12:30 – 14:30; 14:30 – 16:30; 16:30 – 18:30; 18:30 – 20:30; 20:30 – 22:30.
So, How does it make business sense to hold matches at the same time when fans might want to watch more than one and thus be exposed to more advertising?
EDIT: To be clear, the current schedule for the premier League last weekend was 1 at 12:30, 5 games at 16:00 or so and 1 at 20:30. We already have staggered times! It’s just that the majority are cotemporaneous.
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The NFL in the US is actually experimenting with more games starting at different times and on different days of the week, there are three time slots on Sunday, one or two on Monday, and one on Thursday.
It’s a tradeoff between letting fans view more games on TV and letting more teams play at a consistent time with the highest viewership.
In the US there’s also an issue of multiple times zones — the optimal times for viewing on the East and West coast are not the same.
Scheduling is hard enough as it is without having to juggle which teams get the good time slots with maximal viewership. And to be honest many teams are really only appealing to their home fans.
They tinker with the formula every time they renew the broadcast contracts, but it comes down to maximizing TV revenue, not maximizing the number of hours of live game a dedicated fan can watch in a week.
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