Well, the entry on the Rose Bowl was so widely read and enjoyed so I thought I’d follow it up with an NFL version. This was all kicked off by my assertion that the NFL has become unwatchable product.

Disclaimer, due to a service interruption in my video, I missed the final one minute 31 seconds of game time, so it’s not quite the full game. Nevertheless, with 58 minutes and 29 seconds of playing time plus pre-game and half-time, it’s likely that the percentages hold for the entire broadcast. It was a mind-numbing 166 minutes of elapsed time with no aid of DVRs etc.

The game in question was the Indianapolis Colts vs. Kansas City Chiefs broadcast on NBC January 6, 2007. A word about the game, Indy has a defense? Apparently so. The Chiefs were held without a first down until late in the 3rd quarter. The Chiefs defense did well to hold the point total to 23, Indianapolis offense did enough to win, their defense performed very well. The Chief’s offense, well, was flat out offensive. It was one of the worst performances by an offense at any level I’ve witnessed. Indy won the game 23-8. For the record, I’m not a fan of either team.

A word about methodology and terms, I watched the entire available broadcast recording the number of ads (dedicated air time for a product/service/company >5 seconds) and the number of plugs (spots/mentions/images/product placement <5 seconds) with the advertiser name and a category. Additionally, due to the way NBC chose to present replays, there is a subcategory of plug called the fast plug where the image is a 1 second blast of logo plus sound. This is important because each replay was preceded and followed up by one of these fast plugs. The data was recorded in time sequence while watching the game and like the Rose Bowl, I've chunked it down and analyzed it to make it a bit more digestable.
This was the longest 2.75 hours of TV ever watched. Boring game, overload of ads, continuous flashing of brands. Ugh. Now on to the data.

The broadcast ran 166 minutes including pre-game and halftime. The game was supposed to start at 1:30pm PT according to the programming, but actually kicked off at 1:40 meaning there was 10 minutes of pre-game content/ads. There were 80 minutes of dedicated ad time in the programming, amounting to 48% ad time and 86 minutes of content accounting for the other 52% of programming. Within the 86 minutes of content time, there were 218 plugs (142 of which were “fast plugs”) – or a plug every 22 seconds. This is exclusive of the scoreboard crawler/ticker which was nearly continuously displayed with NBC and NFL logos.

Even backing out the fast plugs, the NBC logo with accompanying sound at the start and finish of each replay, there were 76 “regular” plugs in the 86 minute content time meaning there was a plug every 68 seconds. A total of 63 distinct advertisers paid for the ads, plugs, and fast plugs in this 166 minutes. Now wonder my brain was jello by the time this broadcast was completed.

The top 10 overall advertisers were:



You can see that NBC (with or without the fast plugs) was the top advertiser. Interesting, I wonder if that’s by design entirely or if they were having difficulty selling ads? I doubt that it would have affected the plugs or fast plugs much, but having the broadcast network as the top overall advertiser seems odd, I’d think the spots would be worth more than the promotional value for new NBC shows and other sports events. The top Ad count and Plug count don’t look substantially different than the top 10 overall, here they are respectively starting with top ad count:



Top Plug Count:



As with the Rose Bowl analysis, I also dropped each ad/plug into a category. That shows another dimension of what’s being thrown at you when watching these games:



Setting aside the media category, there is much more balance in the categories for the NFL game than witnessed in the Rose Bowl. The media category still accounts for a 44 count when fast plugs are backed out making it the highest count category.

The roster of advertisers with counts follows:



An interesting mix of companies with NBC properties leading all categories. There are a couple of advertisers in there I can only believe are local based on the San Francisco Bay Area broadcast area. The vast majority are national spots though I believe. Unlike the Rose Bowl, I can’t point to any particular ad that stood out in the neverending parade of advertisements. Perhaps the NFL contest commercial to go to the super bowl is the only exception, though I can’t remember what they wanted you to do to enter the contest.

As with the Rose Bowl, automobile/truck manufacturers dominated by quarter. Fords were one quarter, Chevy’s another, Toyota was halftime, Lincoln/Mercury another, and Nissan had a shot or two. There was less beer advertising that I expected in this particular broadcast. Beer and trucks were the advertising fuel driving games in my memory – they were there to be sure, just not in the proportions I would have expected.

Well, if you’re tired of watching sporting events because the ads have overpowered the content, you now have data. It’s nearly 50/50 content ads on traditional advertising fronts and when plugs and product placement are included, they get you even with DVR technology. I can’t ever imagine watching an NFL game other than perhaps the Superbowl as a social thing. I won’t ever watch another college football game without my trusty DVR. Even so, it’s clear advertising is evermore present in the content rather than being segregated into specific advertising slots. The one distinct advantage the NFL has over college is that the game pace does seem faster. I think that has to do with better officiating and clock rules.

I believe the data supports my earlier assertion that the NFL is unwatchable. That conclusion is subjective, but the data does demonstrate that the broadcast has become a long commercial with periodic breaks for the game.


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OSU plays for the national championship TODAY!
Ohio State’s 2006 record: 12-0 Next up: Florida 1/8/2007
Tune: My Torture by Esthero
Technorati Tags: NFL | Advertising | Unwatchable | Mike Harding Blog

An internet old-timer, the Darwin Awards has a long and esteemed history. For some, probably not their cup of tea. But for others, a fascinating and often hilarious look at how people remove themselves from the gene pool.

Finalists from this year include:

• Star Wars – Fight with light sabres made from petroleum laden fluorescent light tubes
• Hammer of Doom – Ordinance deconstruction with a hammer (blogged about here last year)
• High on Life – Oxygen displacement in a helium balloon
• Snake in the Grass – A case of mistaken identity
• Flyswatter – 40mm shell used for insect extermination

Click the Darwin Awards link to see the 2006 winners and finalists. Clearly disease and war aren’t the only things controlling population growth, our own lack of common sense and good judgment seems to contribute mightily to the cause! Browse prior years too, they’re generally entertaining (and also a source of some of the myths tested on the tv show MythBusters.)


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3 days until OSU plays for the national championship
Ohio State’s 2006 record: 12-0 Next up: Florida 1/8/2007
Tune: Come on in my Kitchen by Crooked Still
Technorati Tags: Darwin Awards | 2006 | Winners | Mike Harding Blog

Unlike the prior OSU/Michigan game preview (a series of 7 entries,) this is going to be short and sweet because I don’t have many spare cycles to burn at the moment.

Florida can win if they:

• Pressure Troy Smith consistently with 4 linemen
• Stop the running game
• Jam receivers at the line of scrimmage
• Don’t turn the ball over
• No special teams gaffs

Conversely, Ohio State can win if they:

• Run well between the tackles
• Protect Troy Smith from pressure
• Play assignment defense to twart the “gadget plays”
• Pressure Chris Leak
• Get all skill players involved on offense

What will happen? I don’t know. But I do know that Tennesee, a team that Florida beat on the road by one point, was hammered by a so-so Penn State team in their bowl game and that Arkansas, a team Florida beat by 10 in the SEC Championship game got whacked by a good Wisconsin team. Much noise has been made in the press about SEC “speed” and that it will cause a mismatch for OSU. Don’t buy that, the two games above demonstrate the Big 10 can hang with the SEC.

On paper, I’d say this is a mismatch in OSU’s favor, but games aren’t played on paper. I worry about the Buckeyes being favored, consistently reminded of how “good” they are, and that they should win. We’d better hope the fire is there. On the flip side, Florida has the motivation of the underdog and no one is giving them much chance. Florida is a very good football team, they’ve got a good chance to win the game. That being said, I just can’t see it happening without bizarro turnovers (like the two errant snaps in the OSU/Michigan game) with the combination of offense, defense, and special teams the Buckeyes have fielded this season. Then again, I thought Michigan would take USC to the cleaners in the Rose Bowl and it didn’t quite work out that way…

Prediction: Ohio State wins a tough game, 27-16, somewhat closer than the score indicates. I can easily see this game in doubt in the 4th quarter. In the end, I trust that the coaching staff will have the team prepared and that the team will execute their game plan and adjust as required. It’s going to be a great game no matter what, there is no way to be disappointed when your team has a chance to win the national championship!


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4 days until OSU plays for the national championship
Ohio State’s 2006 record: 12-0 Next up: Florida 1/8/2007
Tune: Bangin’ by Haystak
Technorati Tags: Ohio State | Florida | National Championship | Mike Harding Blog

A colleague sent this to me yesterday. I’m warmed (pun intended) to see Walmart take a bold move toward energy efficiency. Using the roof space on it’s massive buildings to host solar arrays may make some sense. Certainly Google thinks so and Federal Express (Oakland, CA sorting facility) has had solar cells on the roof for some time now.

Independent of this specific proposal, it’s great to see some large corporations make concentrated efforts to lead in this area.

Note to Mr. LaMonica (author of the CNet piece) – the largest proposed single instance of solar generation is in China at 100MW and Germany has a 12MW plant in production now. While Walmart could aggregate into 100MW size, it’s not quite the same thing. Still beneficial, no doubt.


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4 days until OSU plays for the national championship
Ohio State’s 2006 record: 12-0 Next up: Florida 1/8/2007
Tune: Sunshine by Lil’ Flip
Technorati Tags: Renewable | Energy | Solar | Mike Harding Blog

One of our Partners brought this to my attention this morning and I thought it was worthy of a mention. Polaris Geothermal has completed it’s first round of equity financing recently using what looks to be a “spec company” approach – they seem to have a different approach in Canada to getting this done. See the press release here for details. Polaris is developing a 66MW geothermal power generation project near Leon, Nicaragua.


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5 days until OSU plays for the national championship
Ohio State’s 2006 record: 12-0 Next up: Florida 1/8/2007
Tune: Managua, Nicaragua by Guy Lombardo
Technorati Tags: Renewable | Energy | Geothermal | Mike Harding Blog