And I don’t feel guilty about it at all

Frank McKinley

Feb 2, 2020·5 min read

Yesterday, one of my male coworkers told me, “I can’t tell you how many times people asked me who I’m rooting for in the Super Bowl. I’d just say, ‘ma’am, I don’t watch football.’”

I replied, “If it weren’t for people talking about it here at work, I wouldn’t have known it was on TV this weekend.”

To be honest, I didn’t even know who was in the game until a couple days ago. One friend from California is rooting for the 49ers. Another has always been a Cowboys fan.

Thanks for the info.

I say I like college football

You know, it’s funny. When I sit down to watch my home team play, I bring my phone with me onto the couch.

I know. Phones are the biggest attention stealers and producing killers in the universe. We should all just throw them in the trash and go back to dipping feathers in ink bottles and write letters to each other.

I write on mine, so for me it’s a productivity tool.

TV killed our attention spans way before phones ever had the chance. When we watch TV, most of the time we’re passive. Everything is fed to you:

• Pictures
• Sounds
• Context through music, setting, and even wardrobe

You don’t have to do anything but eat bon bons and drink beer.

In a half hour sitcom, you get 22 minutes of program interrupted twice by commercials every 10 minutes.

But if think that’s bad, wait until you see this.

The average football game lasts for three hours or so. In that three hours, the time is divided this way:

• 45 minutes of commercials
• 27 minutes between plays, which last 10 seconds each
• 43 minutes of commentary
• 16–23 minutes of actual game play

The rest is spent on officials reviewing questionable plays.

It reminds me of someone spending 800 pages to write 10 pages worth of substance.

No wonder people do other things while the game is on.

I know I do:

• Reading
• Writing
• Brainstorming
• Naps
• Petting my dog
• Phone calls
• Basically anything but watching the game

I’m not idealistic about not watching

Some boycott the game for moral reasons. There’s a lot of talk about concussions players suffer and how it wrecks their lives. You might object to some players kneeling during the national anthem. Or maybe you just think the athletes are super talented and extremely immature.

I know about all this, but that’s not why I don’t watch.

I quit habitually watching my local college team because they always seem to choke in the games that matter most. Maybe I’m just addicted to the nostalgia of my own college days when Herschel Walker set and broke a host of records. And honestly, nobody could call a game like Larry Munson. I took a radio to the game just so I could hear him tell the story I was watching.

Those days are gone forever, living only in history books and YouTube videos.

When you’re just not interested in something, why bother doing it? Especially if there’s no tangible benefit for doing so?

I kinda like being that guy who didn’t watch the game

I already know I’m weird.

• I love to spend hours reading on the couch.
• I take walks to think, and maybe experience nature.
• I listen to learn on my incredibly long commute to work each day.
• I listen to music I’ve never heard before because I get tired of what I’ve heard already.
• When I go out to eat with other people, I order something different than everyone else.
• Philosophical discussions are my idea of fun.

I could go on, but I want you to keep reading.

A recent survey of 100 men found 74 of them watched the Super Bowl that year. So that makes me one of the one in four that didn’t. So are we so uncommon?

What’s funny is when someone is shocked that I didn’t watch or don’t plan to. How could you possibly do that? You’ve gotta watch. Don’t you know that?

No, I don’t.

If I went to a party, I’d probably talk, drink beer, and have a conversation about why I’d rather talk than watch the game. Or maybe I’d stray into why I believe anyone can be creative. Maybe I’d investigate someone’s career and find out the steps they took to get there.

The world is wide open.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone could capture the 16 minutes of actual gameplay and charge a small fee to watch it, without commercials or commentary or any of the stuff that isn’t ball possession and movement?

If I wanted to watch badly enough, I’d buy that.

The commercials are where the money is

This year advertisers will dish out $5 million for 30 seconds of your time.

Why would they do that?

Because 7 out of 10 TV sets in America will play the game. That translates to an average of just over 100 million people. Surely some of those people will buy, right?

Maybe, if you want to reach the masses.

That can be hard, considering a short bathroom break will last longer than your commercial.

Of course, everyone won’t go to the bathroom at the same time. And with the multitude of commercials, at least a few million will see yours.

I won’t.

I tolerate most commercials because they allow me to have for free services I’d otherwise pay for:

• Internet radio
• Smartphone apps
• TV programs
• Podcasts
• Games
• Social media accounts

Your best bet is to get the right message to the right people at the right time.

When I have watched the game, the commercials that grab my attention are the ones that tell the best stories. Entertain me if you want my attention. Give me something that I’m already interested in and you have my heart for those precious 30 seconds.

You might even get me to open my wallet.

But not this year.

Go ahead and watch if you want

I hope you have fun, eat some awesome food, and have a great time with your friends.

I’ll be reading, sitting on the couch with my family, and maybe watching one of those TV marathons the other networks will roll out to get people like me to watch.

I’ll be going to bed early because like every other morning, I’m getting up early to write.

Thanks for reading, and may your favorite team win!