Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti believes "altering the commercials during games could be a place to start" in improving NFL ratings after they were down during the regular season, according to Ryan Mink of BALTIMORERAVENS.com. Bisciotti said, "We’ve got to figure that out. ... If you change that, it could mean a reduction in income, but that’s going to hit the players more significantly than it’s going to hit the owners. I still don’t know any owner that’s in this business because of the money." He added, "Everything is on the table, and if we have to go to ABC and NBC and say that we’ve got to cut some commercials out and give some money back and half of that money doesn’t go into the player pool, maybe that’s what we’re going to have to do. But our expenses would be adjusted accordingly too. So, I’d like to see some things cleaned up.” Bisciotti added, "It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that nobody wants to see two minutes of commercials, come back, kick the ball and then go to a minute-and-a-half of commercials. I’ve thought that was absurd since I was 20 years old" (BALTIMORERAVENS.com, 1/15). Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio predicted there will be fewer commercials in games next season and noted while the "primary culprit" for the ratings drop appears to have been the presidential election, the lower numbers have "forced the NFL to take a look at ways to streamline the production." While the average game is around 3 hours, 7 minutes, if the league "can make it feel like it's moving faster, that helps” (“PFT,” NBCSN, 1/17).
