why do sports matches start at the same time? How does this make business sense?

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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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13 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

For sports that play once a week, like football and soccer, you want to maximize viewers. The best time for viewers is on the weekend. On the weekend, people have time to spend 2-3 hours during the middle of the day to watch or go to a sporting event.

Since you want to play football an soccer during the weekend, you only have limited time to do it. In EPL for example, you have to fit 10 games. If each game is two hours from start to finish, that’s twenty hours of game time. People will only realistically watch games from 10 am to 6 pm, so you only have an eight hour window. You can’t fit 20 hours of games in 8 hours. As a result, you need to play some games at the same time.

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