What is it about countdown clocks?

It’s a tight game. There can’t be long to go. The team we’re supporting is three points up and can’t get the ball out of the opposition forward line. Out of nowhere, an opposition player flukes a goal! Now we’re three points down. the ball goes back to the centre to restart the game. Can we get the ball into our forward line to get the vital goal to win the game? The tension is electric! There’s a clearance from the centre bounce, it goes to our star player who takes the ball inside 50 and is steadying for a kick for goal . . . .

The tension is obvious. Put in a countdown clock and it’s diminished by a huge degree. But that doesn’t stop the boosters pushing the idea.

AussieRulesBlog simply cannot understand why anyone would want to know ten or twenty seconds before the siren goes that their team’s chances of winning were zero. Watching broadcast games where there is a countdown clock, we know the game is done and dusted and we simply turn it off. There’s just no reason to continue to watch. It’s the unknown time remaining that creates and builds the tension. Once you know, there is no tension.