Joe Rogan explains why football is not as popular in the United States as other sports like basketball, baseball, and American football.
Many have said that football isn’t popular in America because the continuous clock doesn’t allow for much commercial time, essentially prohibiting advertising.
Basketball and baseball, two of the most popular sports in the United States, are widely commercialized programming because they are often convenient in terms of the number of breaks taken.
According to a WSN survey, basketball is the worst offender when it comes to ads. In fact, the average viewer will spend 32% of their time watching advertising and 36% watching the game.
Football, on the other hand, has the fewest advertisements, with supporters spending 86% of their time watching the game itself.
Soccer fans are compelled to spend only 7% of their half-time break viewing advertising, which takes us back to Rogan’s point.
Rogan argues that American television has yet to adjust to a sport televised with fewer commercial breaks. He said: “One of the reasons why it’s not good for television in America is because they don’t take breaks.
“It’s not like, you know, you have to stop, ‘we’ll be right back’ or ‘we’re back with commercials’, Pizza Hut, and all that sh**… that’s how you fund television, you need commercials.
He added: “[In other sports] there are timeouts. There are things that happen where you get little breaks, but soccer just goes on and on and on.”
Rogan, on the other hand, expressed his admiration for football players in the podcast, just after visiting his local team in Austin, Texas.
“Soccer is a particularly difficult sport in terms of your cardiovascular function,” he said. “Those guys are in insane shape. You have to be. The amount of strain [on your body]. They’re sprinting.
“Austin has a soccer league, and I went to see it live. These guys have thoroughbred legs. They are in insane shape. As a person who works out, watching the demand that’s required to the body, to be able to perform that way, sprinting constantly… I was really impressed.”
