text: why can't they show american football games commercial free like they do world cup games?   first of all, to every one who has answered, the soccer games (world cup, mls, etc.) are not less capitalistic than the football games.  look in the corner of your screen and you will see that kodak or pepsi or whomever has paid for this portion of the game.  the announcers in soccer games will even verbally tell you that "this portion of the game is brought to you commercial-free by nike".    the truth is that the soccer clock doesn't stop.  a game changing play can occur at any time.  it would be potentially embarrasing for soccer games to cut to a commercial and miss a goal.    american football, however, has plenty of pauses.  whether it is after a score, during a time-out, or what is oddly referred to as a "tv time-out", the game isn't as dependant on the clock.    this isn't to say that one is better than the other, but watching american football without the brief pauses would get rather tedious.    besides, if there weren't commercial breaks during football games, when would i get up to get myself a beer?