The 15 minutes thing on football is misunderstanding the game. Snap to whistle isn’t the whole game, the play really starts when both teams finish their substitutions, that’s when they ( and the commentators, and audience) start trying to figure out what the other team is doing, that’s when audibles start, adjustments happen. Yeah the PLAY is 4 to 8 seconds, but the ACTION is closer to 30.
Also football is structured exactly the same as classic TV dramas. For decades TV drama followed the rule of 3: tell the audience what you’re going to show them, show them, tell them what the just saw. That’s exactly how things work for football, the players come out, the commentators start guessing what will happen, the play happens, the commentators analyze and replay. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s no coincidence that the NFL’s rise coincides with the rise of TV, it truly is the perfect TV sport. It is The Rockford Files with pads.
It’s hardly a misunderstanding. I said that as a kid I tracked the time the ball was in play. That was less than 15 minutes. No misunderstanding at all.
Whatever value you perceive beyond that deals with something beyond the ball being in play. The same could be said about the interplay between the batter and the pitcher in baseball. People who understand the game appreciate what each is trying to do to the other.
Soccer - sorry if I’m hijacking this thread! - doesn’t leave a lot of room for thinking, neither does hockey.
I don’t anything about what you consider to be classic TV drama but Rockfish doesn’t fit anywhere in my definition - with or without pads. 8+)