This.
Go to a college football game that is not televised and check out the difference in the way the game flows, the way there is constant action and excitement.
There is such a thing as too many timeouts, and timeouts that are too long. TV is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs with their extreme focus on making as much money as possible per game. People at the games and watching at home have a limited ability to withstand all the interruptions in the action.
To paraphrase badly, if you interrupt it too much, they won't come (watch).
Yes, Media time outs are way too long/frequent in CFB. College Basketball did some work to improve this with the 4min segment timeouts being combined when called timeouts fall in range and 30 second window around 4min. There is work to be done here for CFB. I can't tell you how many times they have a review on a TD - go to commercial - come back for the extra point- go back to commercial or some very similar scenario. Current rule is 20 per game,
eek.
Frankly it not only hurts the in stadium crowd it hurts the TV audience. When I'm watching non-SU games at home I surf to other games/shows during commercials, because they are so long, and frequent even if its a good game. A couple times I've got watching something else and forgotten to go back, and I'm a rabid CFB fan.
My Ideas:
-Increase on the field 'green screen' projected ads between plays to reduce media timeouts. Remember there's only 11-12 mins of actual play time in a football game (more for us under Babers but still) plenty of time for ads on the field. This could actually increase ad revenue because games could be shorter and then staggered to keep people watching the second half of each game all day.
-Set a system similar to College basketball that is more clear for when the triggers will be for a media time out that is public knowledge so fans and coaches know. First stoppage (score/change of possession/review) past the halfway point of each quarter? First stoppage after each 5 mins of game play? That would still be less.
-At stadiums during the media timeouts put on highlights/live action like ESPN goaline, of big games and games of rivals/conference opponents on mute. That way fans at the stadium get to watch games they are missing and the stadium can still run their in house ads.
-I like the 2 reviews suggestion from another poster similar to NFL to keep things moving, except college refs make more mistakes it seems.
-One option is to limit booth review to 30 seconds (or another small window of time) and that's it, can't see it in 30 seconds it stands as called. Just buzz down, on the field ref announces play is under review, game clock stops, players line up as if the call is correct and wait 30 seconds. Play starts immediately and there is no long stoppage unless the play is overturned. If we are reviewing every play don't even announce confirmed or stands as called just put it confirmed or stands on the stadium scoreboard and TV broadcast screen after the next down.
-Maybe combine the two ideas and only the ones that are called by the coaches get the long stoppage.
-Also during first 3 quarters just Kick the extra point and then review the TD during the time out commercial. Just adjust the rule so that if the TD is no good both sets of points go off the board. The clock is stopped anyways.
-Shorter halftime would get my vote too 15 min is fine.