A recent post I’ve seen presented a tendency in Football spectators interests.

The data is showing that, at least in the countries of the top-5 Leagues in the World – La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy,), Ligue 1 (France), Bundesliga (Germany) and the Premier League (England) – there wasn’t more than 50% of Football fans assuming to see the the Full Match length (90 minutes).

Anywhere.

The highest was literally 50%, in Italy.

That is, somehow, concerning.

I don’t have the full disclosure of the study, but the tendency is that less people are willing to stick to a screen for the 90 minutes of the match.

On the other hand, recently I was involved in a meeting where someone said that “the data also supports that more and more people are involved within the industry of Football”.

Therefore, the question is: How does that data align with each other?

Through Matches Highlights?
Sports news reports?
Newspapers?
Websites?

Or, maybe, through Videogames ?
E-Gaming?

There’s definitely other resources out there growing immensely.

Then, we have the injuries, the match load and all the concerns about players safety and longevity.

And, as we all know, Football Clubs (generally) struggle to meet ends financially, leaving to be profitable to only a few worldwide.

So, everyone is (happily) accepting this tendency of increasing matches, competitions, or camps/tours (we are now having Clubs adding an end-of-Season Tour, instead of only the “normal” Pre-Season Tour).

It will happen broadly.

Let’s face it and understand that, work with it instead of against it.

Maybe, at the beginning, not the players.

But that’s only until their agents are discussing contracts, to be truthfully.

So, let’s face it – everyone wants more matches, more competition, more money.

There’s no harm on wanting to be profitable.

Now, I may be lunatic here, but what is the data telling us?

Am I the only one assuming that we may have to face the reality that if the Games were reduced to 70 or 80 minutes, we could have an increase of Full-Match engagement?

Is data supporting this assumption?

And, with that, reduce the match impact on players, guaranteeing their ability to play more matches per year, more competitions, less injury risks?

Would that have an impact?

Cristiano Ronaldo said recently that in order to keep playing 60 to 70 Games per Season “players need to train less”.

Now, that’s a bold sentence!

“Train smarter, not longer!” Ronaldo continued.

I asked myself, what is Ronaldo really trying to tell us?

He’s a master of nutrition and recovery, no doubts.

But to train less, means you’re preparing your body for a different impact in terms of resistance, resilience, short or long runs, duels, dribbles, headers, etc.

And for less time energy and durability, as well.

So, my thought about reducing the matches length persisted.

If we can reduce the match by 10 to 20 minutes per match, then after 10 matches (currently almost touching 1000 minutes, with additional time every match, etc) we could reduce it by 20% or so (ie. 70 minutes match, with a maximum of 10min additional time on each match, would total 800 minutes after 10 matches).

Consequently, meaning, that the current 60 matches per Season could be a norm virtually to everyone at a 20% less load in comparison with today’s match length.

We could, probably, reduce the Training Sessions accordingly, as Ronaldo stated.

This would, naturally, create more and more questions, on the business side, as the Clubs ability to create more stimulus to keep fans entertained for longer than the match-time, or how to make sure the product is presented and sold in a relevant way, on how would the public react to this adaptation, etc.

But that is as relevant there, as it is today.

Again, this is only a thought.

I’m not sure if that would help to reduce the injuries, making Clubs happy with the increase matches/competitions revenues, at the same time as it becomes easily accepted by the public and we have people again watching full-matches.

What are your thoughts?
From the business perspective, from the physical side of it, or even as a fan?
Would you accept this change?
Would it impact your perception?

Let’s discuss!