Interest in the football matches does not exceed 30 minutes

The football matches don’t last 90 minutes anymore, nor even 45. The highlight generation has taken control of the remote and is replacing it with their smartphones. The fact is that people are connecting for increasingly shorter periods; the entire event remains the domain of old nostalgics.

The audience’s attention for football lasts for 35 minutes. This is the time the average Italian fan dedicates to Serie A matches. The issue is global.

The essence of this data is that a match is no longer a sporting event to be followed to understand its unfolding, to know the teams’ play and their countermeasures against opponents. The match is perceived as an event with exciting moments that should be watched to fuel this mood but are immersed in a perceived state of boredom and lack of motivation to keep attention for the full 90 minutes.

This condition explains much of the current mindset of an important segment of young adults for whom sporting spectacles are only worth watching if they are thrilling; otherwise, they shift focus to other events. These data indicate that activities worth engaging in are those considered thrilling, and interest is no longer directed toward the sporting performance but rather towards the aspects that trigger these emotions.

The match thus becomes a means to satisfy the need for experiencing emotions and loses its intrinsic value of a challenge between two ways of playing, where the referee, audience, and the match’s value for the two teams are no longer considered but become accessories that can enhance the emotional moments of a match.

These effects caused by the use of portable devices such as smartwatches will certainly not change the strategies of companies selling matches. On the contrary, these companies will probably be proud to have engaged a greater number of young adults who would have never watched an entire match but can now do so through new platforms and thus subscribe, boosting the business of companies in this sector.