Football:

Despite being considered one of the most action-packed sports, football games consist of relatively little action in the grand scheme of the game. There are constant pauses between plays, and the ball isn’t live for a majority of the game. Similar to baseball, football relies on bursts of excitement rather than a constant flow of action.

“A certain number of commercials are good, but I feel like sometimes they just play an unnecessary amount,” Paly junior Brandon Tu said. “Like one time I saw they came out of a commercial break and showed the kickoff and immediately went back to more commercials.”

All levels of football include significant stoppage time in their games, but the commercials in the NFL and college make the runtime of a broadcast drastically longer. “I think the main problem with the pace of watching football is all the timeouts and commercial breaks,” junior Kacey Washington said. As a whole, one of the issues with football is that the time on the clock is not a good representation of how much time will actually pass before the game ends.

Baseball: 

Baseball is often criticized for its slow play and infrequent activity. With only a few slips of action every game, it can be difficult for new and casual fans to stay invested in the sport. Baseball is unique in that it doesn’t utilize a clock system. Instead, the pace of the game is controlled by an inning system, which can have unpredictable durations.

“There are some stretches during the game where I’m not super actively playing, but I think even at those points, you’re still actively engaged in the game,” senior baseball player Gus Soedarmono said.

The MLB has tried to speed up pace of play by making defensive shifts illegal, increasing base size and integrating pitch clocks, but highschool baseball has continued with the old rules. “High school should definitely add a pitch clock,” Soedarmono said.
However, some fear the MLB is heading in the wrong direction with its recent use of their new ball and strike challenge system allowing players to challenge balls and strikes, slowing down the game even further.

Golf: 

Golf is easily one of the slowest sports, as a majority of the time is spent walking in between shots and analyzing certain aspects of a shot. Most amateur 18-hole rounds last four to five hours, with players averaging 100 shots total, or roughly one shot every three minutes. One of the more frustrating aspects of golf is waiting for groups playing in front of you. With multiple groups playing on the course at the same time, faster groups are usually forced to regress to the speed of slower groups.
“Oftentimes there are old folks in front of you that take extra time to shoot their shots and I usually have to wait an extra two and a half minutes,” junior golf player Dylan Liao said.

The sport takes an adequate amount of thinking and calculation, as a majority of the time not hitting a ball is spent making important decisions about your next shot.

“It may seem like there is a lot of standing around, but we are always doing something,” Liao said. “I think that if we are walking with purpose and not spending five minutes per shot I think the pace of play can stay smooth.”