As the World Cup landed in the U.S. for the first time in three decades, international soccer fans have been acquainting themselves with the distinctly American pleasures of barbecue, highway traffic jams and Texas summers.
But there’s one American tradition that fans of the world’s most popular sport simply cannot tolerate. This summer, World Cup games have introduced commercial breaks smack in the middle of each half.
Also, both sports have actively participated in adding more ad time. American Football has specific “TV Time Outs” sprinkled through the action. Most people don’t notice because they come earlier in the half. (The timing rules also change in the last 5 minutes of the half, although some of those rules speed up the actual gameplay to make more room for commercials).
A televised Baseball game also has much longer breaks between half-innings. Normally 2m 15s, it becomes 2m55s in the playoffs. It used to be that minor league games that weren’t televised ran much quicker, because there was no clock between innings and play started as soon as everyone was ready. But, when the pitch clock came to the minor leagues it also came with a between-innings clock, no matter whether it was necessary or not.