History
The origins are from the days in the NFL when the official game time was kept by a member of the officiating crew, with the stadium clock being unofficial. Its purpose was a checkpoint to ensure that the teams knew how much time remained in the game. Since the late 1960s the NFL stadium clock has been official, but by then television was an important factor in the NFL, so the two-minute warning was retained as a commercial break and to serve as "tension building" time, and thus has become an important part of the game's flow.
Read more about this topic: Two-minute Warning
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)