Do you remember the old saying: Time is money? In lots of ways, it was and certainly is true. But does it apply to watching TV or being on social media?

In 2022, the average person spent just short of two and a half hours a day on social media. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or wherever, that’s a staggering amount of time. And that’s an average – so there are just as many people who spend five hours as there are those who aren’t using any of them. If time is money, that’s a huge part of the day that isn’t productive. That’s why I find it funny when I keep hearing on commercials, interviews or wherever the constant theme of: In our busy lives… Sure everybody’s busy. But busy doing what?

That doesn’t even include the time we spent watching TV. And yesterday I heard some pretty surprising stats for those of us who watch sports on television. These are the average times of ACTUAL play by play. Not the commercial, jibber jabber, replays, panning the crowd or the sidelines. Just the total broadcast time of the actual play:

Soccer game: 58 minutes

NHL hockey game: 53 minutes

NBA game: 49 minutes

Major league baseball game: 22.5 minutes

And the biggest time-waster of all sports on television? Pro football at 18 minutes of actual playing time!