Fewer people watched NFL games last season. The league is worried one reason is that viewers were simply bored. So this year Fox Sports is rolling out a possible solution: Ads that last for only six seconds.
Fox Sports will still run the customary 15- and 30-second ads but will use the 6-second ones in strategic places during NFL games and other sports content, according to a source familiar with the matter. The first 6-second ads will air on September 10.
The move, which was first reported by the New York Times, comes after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in March that speeding up games and changing the structure of commercial breaks was a priority.
It wasn’t entirely clear then what the change in commercial breaks would look like, but Goodell said at the time that the league was trying to cut down on the frequency of commercial breaks so action wouldn’t be interrupted as frequently.
It seems the shorter ads may be one of these implementations.
Industry observers always assumed the number of ads wouldn’t be cut because the NFL and its partner TV networks generate a ton of revenue from ad sales.
The news that the NFL was planning to shake things up came after the NFL got a lot of attention for having poor ratings during last year’s regular season. Ratings rebounded in the postseason, likely due to several factors including the end of the presidential election, better matchups and fewer games.
