There's very little actual football in a football game.

According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there's barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg. In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays.

So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps. In the four broadcasts The Journal studied, injured players got six more seconds of camera time than celebrating players. While the network announcers showed up on screen for just 30 seconds, shots of the head coaches and referees took up about 7% of the average show.

If you're looking for some good books about sports check out Moneyball and Game of Shadows. Here's a great book about a sports junkie. For great sports gambling stories, I recommend this book.

On a related note, have you ever wondered how accurate and effective is the NFL draft?

Or when is the best month of the year to buy NFL tickets?

You might be curious if pro athletes break the law more than the average person.

Here are more things you probably didn't know about sports.

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