ESPN’s NBA Finals halftime coverage is almost exclusively ads

Fans have noticed how the halftime coverage for the NBA Finals on ESPN is full of ads and very little actual analysis of the Suns and Bucks.

The NBA Finals should be all about the basketball. Instead, the actual Game 1 action took a backseat during ESPN’s halftime show.

A reddit user analyzed the time spent discussing the game between the Suns and Bucks, finding the vast majority of halftime was devoted to ads.

Of the 16:03 seconds from the first half buzzer to the start of the second half, ESPN had just over 12 minutes of ads, accounting for 75.2 percent of halftime. The play-by-play crew got two minutes to talk about the game. The studio crew covered the game for 1:58.

ESPN’s NBA Finals halftime coverage is almost exclusively ads

Here’s the complete breakdown from u/NotAllWhoWonderRLost:

"To-the-second breakdown:0:00 First half buzzer (followed by 37 seconds with the play-by-play crew)0:37 “Is brought to you by…” (lasts 15 seconds)0:52 First add break (2 minutes 12 seconds)3:04 Highlight interlude with the play-by pay guys (15 seconds)3:19 First add break continues (1 minute 32 seconds)4:51 Halftime crew does analysis (1 minute 32 seconds)6:23 Second ad break (3 minutes 41 seconds)10:04 Halftime crew does first-half highlights (26 seconds)10:30 Third ad break (4 minutes 24 seconds)14:54 Play-by-play crew is back (1 minute 9 seconds)16:03 Second half clock starts"

The comment with the most votes on r/NBA compared ESPN with TNT.

“TNT’s broadcast is so much better,” u/Familyguy35 wrote. More than seven thousand fans agreed.

A thread from last week actually proves that TNT certainly spends more time analyzing the game, regardless of which network’s coverage you prefer.

U/Nixon_Sixon calculated that TNT spent 48.3 percent of their halftime on NBA coverage. The studio team got more than six minutes to discuss the game.

ESPN will do what makes them the most profit, so of course, ads are part of the equation. It’s just a shame so little time is allotted for meaningful discussion of the games and players that will decide the NBA title.