In Games 2 and 3, the average time between the first half buzzer and the opening tick of the second half was 17:02. Of that time, on average:

-1:45 (10.2%) was spent with the play-by-play crew.

-6:01 (35.3%) was spent with the halftime crew.

-9:17 (54.5%) was ads.

In 2021, the halftime show was 75.2% ads.

In 2022, it was 64.2%.

In 2023, it was 65.9%.

In 2024, it was 72.9%.

In 2025, it was 65.9%.

A to-the-second breakdown of Games 2 and 3:

######Game 2

0:00 First half buzzer

0:45 Ads

3:02 Half time crew

9:34 Ads

12:52 “Brought to you by…”

13:07 Ads

16:10 Play by play crew

16:50 Second half clock starts

######Game 3

0:00 First half buzzer

0:41 Google AI demo

1:30 Ads

3:44 Half time crew

9:14 Ads

12:30 Brought to you by

12:45 Ads

15:51 Play by play crew

17:11 Second half clock starts

jon__koa |

346 | a day ago

Having the Inside crew helps

Tractor499 | Knicks

200 | a day ago

“Cardi D’s” LMAO

TurtleSmile1 | Bulls

57 | a day ago

All time Chuck quote

WonderbreadOG

19 | a day ago

He’s still got his fastball for sure

jon__koa |

18 | a day ago

I fell down laughing so hard at that

20815147 | Warriors

7 | a day ago

He’s still got a mean fastball along with his “Big ole San Antonio Women” pitch

BenShelZonah | Nets

3 | a day ago

Got the wrong letter in her name hahaha

douchey_mcbaggins | Spurs

9 | a day ago

The clip was zoomed in on her tits, so I get it.

Stinja808 | Lakers

2 | a day ago

we know the game was in a two second delay.

we know they censored the crowd chants in game.

so I can’t believe DISNEY let that part of the broadcast through.

Live-Cartographer-52

1 | a day ago

lol

nahcekimcm | SAS

1 | 21 hours ago

Cardi Bolt-ons

Idk how not be grossed out after seeing them leaked online

Sartheking | Warriors

25 | a day ago

If it wasn’t for Inside I would honestly prefer halftime just being all ads and having less during the game.

Winter-Olive-5832 | Wizards

5 | a day ago

Soccer is great with this

SquimJim

170 | a day ago

75% ads in 2021

It’s still wild that there’s more ads than product, but 75%?!?!?!

102WOLFPACK | Spurs

62 | a day ago

It was so fucking bad. No analysis (for a Finals that was really fun and exciting!) outside of surface-level: “They need to want it more!” straight into three-minute-long ad breaks.

Janderson2494 | Timberwolves

4 | 18 hours ago

Not like the Inside crew is any better at this though

kamekaze1024

13 | 16 hours ago

Except they definitely are. They’re not doing thinking basketball level of analysis but it’s *something*. And they’re still entertaining. It’s really no contest

VladimirPutain1 | Timberwolves

12 | 21 hours ago

ESPN did not care about Bucks - Suns. Shame cause it was such an exciting series

nahcekimcm | SAS

10 | 21 hours ago

This might be the old head in me, but it wasn’t always as bad until the ESPN branding took over.

I remember back in the day early ABC al Michaels Stuart Scott days they used to show the entire halftime show and analysis

LetsGo-Brandin

1 | 17 hours ago

That’s been the NBA product as a whole in general. Even during the game there is at least 20 ads on the court

10x player patches 3x referee patches 2-4x cgi court ad 2x baseline logo 4x courtside logo 2x arena sponsor logo

dBlock845 | Knicks

1 | 14 hours ago

I think that was right after they started cleaning house and getting rid of Beadle, Paul Pierce, Chauncey, Jalen Rose, etc. They actually tried to have an okayish pregame and halftime then fired everyone and went to ads/SAS/Perkins.

riverratriver | Spurs

2 | 6 hours ago

I miss Beadle

Guilty-Cow4325 | Knicks

95 | a day ago

This is why it’s an excellent time to restock on snacks.

Nugur

4 | 21 hours ago

Restock? Ha amateurs

Guilty-Cow4325 | Knicks

2 | 21 hours ago

I’m on the Joey Chestnut training regimen.

YeezusHomecoming

82 | a day ago

Even if it’s down historically, last night was out of hand. Second half was such a slog. You’d get back from a break to a challenge back to a commercial

wcooper97 | OKC

17 | 21 hours ago

Worst part was both teams got the first challenge correct and used it late, so they still had the use-it-or-lose-it timeout to use before the 3:00 mark of the 4th.

Fap2theBeat | Knicks

4 | 19 hours ago

Something strange happened with that for Knicks, I think. The Spurs called timeout, but during the spurs timeout, the Knicks challenged the out of bounds call off Harper. Despite being correct and the Spurs having called the original timeout, the Knicks were still charged a timeout. They both went down from 3 to 2 timeouts. I didn’t realize that wrinkle of that rule.

Excellent_Builder_79 | Nuggets

34 | a day ago

Can’t have Cardi Ds if we’re watching the Cardi Ads

TedTran2001

6 | a day ago

not to be confused with Cardi AD, which have her set always broken down

hah_mez

1 | a day ago

can’t spell Cardi Ds without Cardi Ads

HackMeRaps | Raptors

31 | a day ago

This is another reason for getting the illegal streams.

No commercials, and you get to watch the in-arena jumbotron, and see all of the rediculous fans trying to get on the big screen.

Also would rather see all of the Knicks cheerleaders than those ads.

Guilty-Cow4325 | Knicks

14 | a day ago

You still get commercials, it’s just easier to mute and switch tabs. I did that and I thought the stream was messing up cause it was a commercial damn near every time lol.

HackMeRaps | Raptors

22 | a day ago

I don’t get any commercials on my feeds.

All in-arena entertainment. Get to watch them launch the t-shirts into crowd, and see all of the hype videos from the jumbotron.

They did a lot of celebrity videos yesterday. Had ones of Derek Jeter, did a video of Mr. Chalamet cheering on the Knicks using a Dune trailer..etc.

So much better than commercials!

Guilty-Cow4325 | Knicks

3 | a day ago

Damnnnn. I need to find your site lol.

HackMeRaps | Raptors

11 | a day ago

It most likely uses the international NBA league pass feeds. If you want on League pass, you don’t get ads either and see all the in-arena entertainment when there’s a normal commercial break.

Guilty-Cow4325 | Knicks

1 | a day ago

I’ll have to look around for one those. Good lookin’ out.

LazyWeb9421

3 | a day ago

There’s a lot of sites that have this. Honestly, I like the commercial ones since it’s easier to tell when the game is back on and I don’t care to watch performers from my computer screen.

jimmylamstudio

26 | a day ago

Adam Silver reads this as a decline

North_Atlantic_Sea

13 | a day ago

Lol, blame Adam Silver when things outside his control get worse, blame Adam Silver when things outside his control get better

stickyWithWhiskey | Mavericks

9 | a day ago

Schrodinger’s Silver is creature of multitudes, all of them wrong.

who_Knows00475

7 | a day ago

Tbf I think he has the ability to say he wants more coverage and less ads during halftime

dwrek24 | Spurs

2 | a day ago

He can say anything he wants. But Disney absolutely doesn’t have to listen.

The only sway in this regard he has is negotiating it when they have leverage during the rights negotiations.

Is it a coincidence this improved the immediate finals after a rights deal? Maybe.

Could just be Inside the NBA forcing ESPN to be normal. Silver also may have actually threatened them to tighten up during last negotiations.

Or both.

nahcekimcm | SAS

3 | 21 hours ago

That’s why this media deal was a steppingstone, but not enough to change things drastically

Ideal world they could add more stations like NFL does with all four networks or at a very least rotate the championship games to a different network like NHL every other year

who_Knows00475

2 | a day ago

I think it could be related to nbc getting high ratings as well

dwrek24 | Spurs

2 | a day ago

Perhaps that as well. A threat is only as good as his ability to make good. He now has a business partner he can viably give the finals too if Disney doesn’t act right.

jimmylamstudio

3 | a day ago

Comes with the job title

bslawjen

8 | a day ago

55% ads is absolutely unwatchable. Wtf is this?

ObviousAnswerGuy | NYK

6 | 21 hours ago

54%?? the bar is so fucking low I swear….

Clemsontigger16 | Celtics

3 | a day ago

Advanced ad stats!!! The future is here!

ksn0vaN7

3 | 21 hours ago

At one point cable tv was approaching 25% ads and we let that shit rot in hell and moved to streaming. 55% is still diabolical. It really should be 20% at best. Logos all over the arena already counts as ads. Wtf is this!

Ancient-Purpose99 | Thunder

1 | a day ago

Eh these days those ads are probably far less valuable than the ads in the middle of the game, so it’s easy to trim them

Pneuma_LooT | Pistons

1 | a day ago

I seriously couldn’t care less if the entire half time show was commercials.

I am not watching that shit either way lol.

Argyrus777 | NBA

1 | a day ago

Gotta make back the revenue loss from all the 4 game series

njwineguy

1 | a day ago

What’s the per minute revenue comparison? It must be higher. I’d also wager that they have detailed studies showing viewers lost per minute of additional ads.

Stuttering_Stoic

1 | 13 hours ago

That’s crazy….

ABC’s Finals halftime coverage is 54.5% ads — a significant improvement from previous years.