text: Contrary to popular belief, millennials are interested in purchasing homes. They're just waiting longer to buy. 
   
   A September report from the real-estate website and app Zillow found that millennials — i.e., people between the ages of 18 and 34 — are the largest group of homebuyers in the US. (The median age of a homebuyer is 36.) 
   
   Spencer Rascoff, Zillow's CEO, has some insight into why millennials are delaying their first home purchases. On an episode of Business Insider's podcast, "Success! How I Did It," Rascoff broke it down for our US editor-in-chief, Alyson Shontell: 
   
   "As a result of limited starter-home inventory, they're renting longer. And when they buy their first home, they're buying a much nicer home than a prior generation," he said. 
   
   "I mean, many people are basically skipping starter homes; they're renting until their 30s, and that first house they buy is a million dollars, and they just are not even buying the $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 home, which is a total mind shift as compared with previous generations. So they're still buying homes — they're just buying them later and buying them bigger." ||||| CLOSE SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports' fantasy football expert Steve Gardner shares his advice on who you should start, and sit, in your lineup this weekend. USA TODAY Sports 
   
   Fox Sports will run 6-second ads during the Cowboys-Broncos game. (Photo: Craig Barritt, Getty Images) 
   
   Viewers of Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys-Denver Broncos game will see what one Fox executive told USA TODAY will soon become commonplace in the network’s sports broadcasts: The six-second ad. 
   
   T-Mobile has developed multiple six-second spots that will bookend a more traditional 30-second ad from the mobile carrier. The ads -- which appear similar to online pre-roll ads -- will run during Fox’s America’s Game of the Week broadcast that will be seen by 81% of the country. 
   
   “I think this really shows that we are not married to a certain commercial length,” Bruce Lefkowitz, executive vice president of advertising sales for Fox Networks Group, said in a phone interview. “This is a new opportunity for advertisers, since it changes how ads can run in games. We are going to expand this to Major League Baseball broadcasts and every single NFL game starting next week.” 
   
   CLOSE Viewers of the Cowboys-Broncos game Sunday will see what one Fox executive told USA TODAY Sports will soon become commonplace in the network’s sports broadcasts: the six-second ad. 
   
   Earlier this year during a presentation to advertisers, Fox hinted that it was going to experiment with ad length during games. (There are already 15-second ads mixed with occasional 60-second ads during NFL broadcasts.) The six-second ads were tested during the Teen Choice Awards broadcast by Fox last month. 
   
   For T-Mobile, the experiment with six-second ads isn’t surprising. In recent years, the company has tried to position itself as the “Un-Carrier,” heavily embracing and experimenting with social media. CEO John Legere is particularly active on various platforms, including Twitter, where he has more than 4.5 million followers. 
   
   Mobile push: Want free Netflix? T-Mobile hopes so 
   
   "We know that short-form videos perform better in digital, and that consumer attention spans are increasingly shorter," Kari Marshall, VP of media at T-Mobile, said in a statement to USA TODAY. "So applying these insights to TV, and taking what we’ve seen with shorter ads to date, we’re very excited to partner with Fox to take it a step further." 
   
   T-Mobile is no stranger to the NFL. During last February's Super Bowl, it featured three minutes worth of ads that included celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. 
   
   Lefkowitz said the ability to grab viewers’ attention via the shorter spots, especially younger viewers, was “certainly” a consideration in the creation of the six-minute ad segments. 
   
   “We have done research on Millennials and how they interact to different types of messages,” Lefkowitz said. “You don’t always need 30 or 60 seconds to reinforce a brand’s message.” 
   
   The creation of the shorter ads also comes as the NFL attempts to recover from an 8% viewership decline last year. 
   
   NFL ratings slip in 2016: NFL TV ratings rebounded after presidential election but still dipped overall 
   
   The NFL worked with its broadcast partners (Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN) to cut down on commercial breaks -- although the breaks are slightly longer now -- among other changes to speed up the game. 
   
   NFL speeds things up: Roger Goodell says changes coming to quicken NFL games 
   
   The pace of play did improve in Week 1 compared to the same time period last year. Only five of the 15 games in the opening weekend exceeded three hours, compared to 10 of 16 games last year. 
   
   PHOTOS: Best of NFL Week 2 ||||| Tom Brady of the New England Patriots celebrates after defeating the Atlanta Falcons during Super Bowl 51 in Houston last February. Credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images 
   
   Visa has signed on to run six-second ads in Fox's National Football League game on Sunday and will use the shortened spot for its Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. 
   
   Visa will run one six-second spot right before kickoff and another during the game, according to Bruce Lefkowitz, exec VP-ad sales, Fox Networks Group. The host of Fox's pre-game show will intro the six-second spot before the game, while the other will run in a traditional pod within the game. 
   
   The short ad unit, first prominently championed by YouTube last year but adopted by others like Facebook in recent months, is part of Fox's strategy to figure out how to improve the TV viewing experience as it confronts competition from platforms with fewer or no commercials. 
   
   "As shorter-form ads have become more and more common in the digital ad space, consumers have become more accustomed to the format, and metrics show that they are more likely to retain the messages conveyed. It makes sense to take these learnings and apply them to the linear ad space as well," says Chris Curtin, chief brand and innovation officer, Visa, in an email. 
   
   "Good creative messaging should be able to be boiled down to simple takeaways for the consumer. So, building for short-form ad units has been a great exercise for our creative teams to ensure our messaging is laser-focused and crystal-clear," he adds. 
   
   Fox is charging similar rates for its six-second spots in NFL games as it does for 15-second ads. A 30-second ad in Fox's Sunday games goes for about $775,000 this season, according to ad buyers. 
   
   Fox plans on airing a limited number of six-second spots during NFL games this season, as well as in telecasts of Major League Baseball and college football and Major League Soccer on FS1. The company is close to signing deals with other marketers for six-second ads in NFL games through week eight, Lefkowitz says. 
   
   The network group began testing the format during its "Teen Choice Awards" in August. 
   
   In theory, most TV people agree that less commercial clutter is good for both consumers and advertisers. Fewer ads increase the chances that the spots will be remembered and decrease opportunities for viewers to change the channel. But there are plenty of questions surrounding the economics. In order to maintain ad revenue while decreasing ad loads, networks have to raise prices on the inventory. Marketers are far from convinced that they should pay more to be in a program with less commercial clutter. But Fox has been aggressive in moving quickly with adopting the format to prove its value. 
   
   In the spot that will air on Sunday, Visa is asking viewers to join in Harvey relief efforts, for which the company has committed $1 million. 
   
   "We collectively decided that it didn't feel right to launch an ad on behalf of our brand in the context of what is occurring in the Gulf states," Curtin says.
target: – Having already killed everything from golf to Applebee's, it looks like millennials have their sights set on the 30-second ad spot. AdvertisingAge reports Visa ran two six-second ads during an NFL game on Fox last Sunday. And T-Mobile will follow suit during this Sunday's Dallas Cowboys game on Fox, according to USA Today. The six-second spots, which Fox first experimented with during the Teen Choice Awards last month, "appear similar to online pre-roll ads." And one Fox executive says they're about to be commonplace on the network: "This is a new opportunity for advertisers, since it changes how ads can run in games. We are going to expand this to Major League Baseball broadcasts and every single NFL game starting next week." Six-second ads were first pushed by YouTube before being adopted elsewhere on the web. A Visa executive says research has shown viewers remember the messaging better in short bursts, and that Fox executive says the six-second ads could appeal to millennials and their shorter attention spans. "We know that short-form videos perform better in digital and that consumer attention spans are increasingly shorter," a T-Mobile executive adds. Thanks to cord-cutters and DVR's ability to fast-forward through commercials, Fox had little choice but to try something new, Fortune reports. Fox has said it may insert the six-second ads into down moments of the games themselves, which could make them both harder to skip and allow the actual commercial breaks to be shorter—a bonus for viewers.