You're watching football, again?

How much time do you spend watching the NFL? The correct answer, as my friend Darren Dodge so eloquently put it is, not enough. That's right Dodgey, not nearly enough. The NFL is one of the greatest things to happen to a man and although the season seems like it takes forever, the numbers prove otherwise.

I am writing this on behalf of all men who have ever had to defend themselves to their wives, girlfriends or anyone else who might complain that they watch too much football.

I am also writing this to the women out there that think their man spends more time paying attention to football than to them.

I am not writing this to my beautiful fiance. She is very supportive of my need to watch football on Sundays, and for that, I am grateful. However, she does get "moody" after it's been on awhile. But I digress.

Let's break it down.

Let's say I wanted to watch every regular season game offered to me on cable. On Sundays that would include the 1:00pm games on CBS or FOX, the 4:00pm games on CBS or FOX and the 8:00pm game on NBC. Also, this would include the Monday night game at 9:00pm on ESPN. On a weekly basis that adds up to 12 hours per week. There are 17 weeks of regular season NFL coverage so that works out to 204 hours per year.

(What about the late season Thursday games, the Saturday games, and the Turkey day games?? Here is why I didn't add those in. Let's be fair. As much as every grown man would like to sit down and watch every minute of every game that comes on TV during the regular season, we can't. It just doesn't happen. So to make up for the occasional game we can't watch on a Sunday or Monday night, I did not factor in the occasional Thursday or Saturday game.)

Then there is the post-season. From the Wild Card round to the Super Bowl, there are a grand total of 15 games that are played. Hourly, that breaks down to 45 hours we could spend watching the post-season.

Add up the regular season hours, 204, with the post-season hours, 45, and you have a grand total of 249 hours that we spend watching NFL games during a year.

What does this mean? In one year there are a grand total of 8,760 hours. Of those 8,760 hours, we spend only 249 hours watching the NFL. This is a total of 2.8% for the entire year!

I will repeat, 2.8% for the entire year!

Which also, in turn, means that we spend 97.2% of our year, NOT watching the NFL. To me, that is wrong. Something that brings us so much pleasure and we are only devoting 2.8% of a year to it. We spend 33% of our year sleeping. I would gladly give some of that up for some more NFL.

Something else to consider. According to Nielsen Media Research, men average 4 hours a day watching TV while women average 5 hours a day. What does that have to do with this?? A lot actually, and while I could spend all day crunching numbers on this, I wont. I don't have to, they speak for themselves. Just try and eliminate these phrases.

"All you do is watch football!".....not true. What is true is that you watch more TV than we do.

"You've been watching football all day!".....maybe, but certainly not all year. Only 2.8% of it.

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