How long is an NFL game?

National Football League games last a little more than three hours, roughly as long as Major League Baseball games. It’s common knowledge that football games at the college and pro levels consist of four 15-minute quarters for an official playing time of 60 minutes. This makes football games longer than basketball games, which are 40 minutes at the college level and 48 in the NBA.

What determines the length of an NFL game?

Typically, live game play is only 11 minutes. Time runs off the clock before and after plays. In-game clock stoppages, such as yard measurements, incomplete passes, ball-carriers running out of bounds and change of possession, also affect the length of games. Each team also has three timeouts to stop the game clock. With game stoppages, the average NFL game lasts a little more than three hours, according to published sources. (In 2008, a Tennessee Titans-Indianapolis game was completed in a little more than 2.5 hours.)

Penalties are another cause for stoppage in play. The number of penalty flags varies depending on the officiating team. Also, some teams are called for more penalties than others. In 2018, the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos were the NFL's most penalized teams, according to The Football Database. The least penalized team was the Tennessee Titans, whose 82 penalties were 10 fewer than the next-lowest team, the Minnesota Vikings.

After being eliminated from the NFL in 1991, the league brought back video replay in 1999 — another opportunity for stoppages. In March 2019, the NFL announced it will allow pass interference calls to be reviewed. According to sportsbettingdime.com, 320 pass interference penalties were called in 2018, 1.25 per game. Pass interference penalties were the third-most frequently called in 2018.

Two other game-stoppage factors add to the length of games: TV commercials and halftime breaks. Halftime in the NFL is typically 12 minutes, eight minutes shorter than the college game.

Have lengths of NFL games changed in recent years?

In 2017, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced the league would cut back on commercials in an effort to speed up pace of play. Despite the commissioner's efforts, the average length of an NFL contest remains stagnant. According to FiveThirtyEight, NFL games lasted a little more than three hours between 2000 and 2016. That roughly three-hour clip hasn’t changed over the past two seasons.