Yesterday marked the beginning of a new (American) football season in the U.S. And although football is not our national pastime (baseball is), football by all rights is the most regularly watched sporting event in the U.S. The Super Bowl 50 broadcast drew 112 million viewers, but that total is significantly higher if you consider how many people watched at Super Bowl parties or at bars/sports clubs. Yes, Americans are crazy about their football.
There are always multiple games broadcasted live on Sundays, and many, like myself, will DVR (record) the games to watch at a later time. As for Monday night games, there is usually one nationally televised game, which starts at 5:30pm (California time). I have to leave work early to get home in time to watch the game from the beginning or DVR the game and watch when I get home or after dinner. I’m sure many football fans DVR many games, since schedules are so hectic to be able to watch every game live in its entirety from the beginning. There are no available means of calculating how many games or hours are recorded every week, but if a non-overtime game usually lasts 3 hours, about 20 GB of storage is needed for the recording. Most people will extend the end time to record at least an additional 30 minutes or an hour to make sure that if the game ends in a tie and goes into overtime, it is recorded, so a more realistic figure is probably 23-26 GB per game.
Most fans, like myself, will record and purge the content on the DVR every week in order to have ample space on an HDD-based DVR in order to record next week’s games; however, some die-hard fans are known to record and keep an entire season to watch again at a later time. Although DVRs or HDDs are not replaced or upgraded on a regular basis, many will eventually need to be, and that should support DVR business, which also means it is good for the HDD industry. And if the television industry eventually transitions to 4K, it may provide even more good news for HDDs over time.
Super Bowl 51 prediction: Kansas City Chiefs 31 – Los Angeles Rams 27 (for those that don’t know me, I’m a LA boy who grew up rooting for the Chiefs – go figure).