Statistically Speaking

Over the past week, most news coverage has been focused on the beginning of two seasons: election season and football season. This became an issue when President Obama scheduled his job creation speech on the evening of Sept. 8, just before the first game of the new NFL season. With Americans having to choose between two pastimes, here are some quick facts on politics and football:

31.4 million: number of viewers watching Obama’s job forecast speech

27.2 million: number of viewers watching the NFL kickoff game between the Saints and Packers

$300 billion: proposed government spending on job creation

57: the average number of minutes people who have jobs and play fantasy football spend playing the game during the work week

Sources: www.post-gazette.com, www.usatoday.com, www.satellitetv-news.com, and www.mercopress.com