During his Pac-12 Media address, Commissioner Larry Scott announced an expanded initiative to shorten both non-conference and Pac-12 football games.
“In addition to presenting exciting and winning football, we’re constantly looking at ways to make the experience better for everyone.” Scott said. “Last year, in response to changing consumer habits, we led the nation in establishing a pilot program to experiment with ways to reduce the length of games.”
The Pac-12 used this pilot program experimentally in 2017-18 to look at ways to shorten game broadcasts and had some marginal success. The broadcasts that used this program last season were, on average, about 8 minutes shorter than games that did not and avoided joining other games already in progress.
Shortened halftimes, restructured commercial breaks, enhanced in-game advertisements and several more game-shortening elements will be implemented into games participating in the program.
In 2018-19 the program will expand to 30 total games – both Pac-12 and non-conference. The majority of these games will be shown on Pac-12 Network, but the program will also get some national broadcasts from ESPN and Fox Sports.
You can listen to the commissioners full address at Pac-12 Media Day here:
