The final minutes of a basketball game can lead to some of the most exciting finishes across all sports. The fast-paced game provides opportunities for both teams to fight for an edge while time winds down. Suspenseful finishes can be interrupted by timeouts and commercial breaks that can interfere with the high-intensity and pace of the game. The final two minutes of an NBA game can be stretched to nearly 15 minutes! Which is exactly what happened in 2015 playoff game between the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers. The series included several drawn-out endings with lengths of 15 minutes, 13 minutes, and 11 minutes starting from the 2-minute mark in the 4th Quarter.
These pauses affect game-viewership in a big way. Throughout the game, viewership declines during any type of break; end of a quarter, halftime, commercial breaks, etc. And even during the final two minutes of a game when it should be most exciting - audiences still tune out. This declining viewership has lead to NBA making changes to the amount of timeouts in a game and by limiting the amount of timeouts that can be used in the final two minutes of a game.
These changes have proved to be successful from just a season ago with a 29% increase in viewership on ESPN and TNT, the leagues’s two media partners, in the 2017-18 season. These changes have improved late-game situations by keeping a consistent pace throughout the 4th Quarter of games. This is an example of how data from TV viewership can help make real-time changes to important aspects of a business, not just basketball.
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