We all hear and see contract signings throughout the years for professional sports. We know the familiar lingo: $22 million over 5 years, blah, blah, blah. What I think about though is what you are actually PAYING for as far as their playing time. Many football stars get a decent contract to live on and may never even get onto the field for a single down. They are basically played to be a backup, practice, learn film, and keep in shape in case something bad happens to a starter. Other players are specifically on the “practice squad” for the NFL. They don’t make millions of dollars, but you can be sure they make enough to live on decently no different than a 9-5 job like you and me.
I was talking with a couple friends over dinner a few nights ago and the topic came up of how long a football game is. Now we can usually all answer the normal question, which is that a game on TV can last about 3 hours. Regulation time for an NFL game is 60 minutes, which is 4 15-minute quarters. But what about ACTUAL PLAYING TIME. The time from when the ball is hiked to the quarterback to when the play is dead. Think about it for a couple minutes. Each play is roughly 3-7 seconds maybe? Give or take a few seconds for big plays that may take 10-15 or even shorter ones that last less than a second. So I started doing some research and found that I’m not the first person to discuss this topic and most of the research is already done for me.
The average ACTUAL PLAYING TIME in an NFL game is 12 MINUTES and 8 SECONDS!
Yes, you read that correctly: 12 minutes and 8 seconds is the average actual playing time in an NFL game. That got my mind rolling even more though to think about all of the big name salaries that players get paid. $22 Million for 5 years or if you are a great quarterback $22 million per year on his current contract … What is Aaron Rodgers cost per minute???
I’m going to make 2 assumptions to get us started.
1) 12 minutes and 8 seconds is for the entire game, so I’m going to assume 50% offensive and 50% defensive, so that means Aaron Rodgers was playing for 6 minutes and 4 seconds.
2) I’m now going to assume that he plays in 4 preseason games, 16 regular season games, and let’s say 4 playoff games (that means he went from Wild Card playoffs all the way to the Super Bowl … that means he has played in EVERY SINGLE GAME POSSIBLE.
NOW LET’S DO THE MATH:
– 24 games / $22 million per year (average per year from overthecap.com Aaron Rodgers Salary) = $916,666 per game
– 6 minutes and 4 seconds per game = 364 seconds per game
– $916,666 divided by 364 seconds = $2,518 PER SECOND
If you ask me … I think that’s a pretty good, actually really good.
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