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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For many tournament/League formats where a aggregate record for a league or group stage determines who advances, having the last matches all occur simultaneously helps prevent a scenario where a team could have no reason to expend effort trying to win a match with nothing to gain.
If a team decides to rest all their best players knowing they still advance with a loss, that tends to result in a lackluster match playing out.
[Even worse when both teams playing the last match have no reason to attempt to score](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gij%C3%B3n)
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