--- title: "Live Sports Are No Longer Live Thanks to Extremely Long Ads" description: "Ads are no longer merely interrupting games; they're delaying live broadcasts that consumers pay to watch." date: "2025-10-17" modified: "2025-10-17" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/espn-stream-ads-lag" categories: - "Finance" - "Future Society" --- # Live Sports Are No Longer Live Thanks to Extremely Long Ads ![Ads are no longer merely interrupting games; they're delaying live broadcasts that consumers pay to watch.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* If you follow major league sports in the US, you know you have to sit through an astronomical number of ads. The average [NFL TV broadcast]() features only 11 minutes of actual game time, but a full hour of commercials. Basketball fans have to sit through 90 — yes, you read that right — [30-second ad spots]() for every NBA broadcast. Not even radio is safe: one analysis of [MLB radio broadcasts]() found that the average baseball team accounts for over 28 ad breaks per game. In fact, between the top four major sports leagues in the US, the average fan will sit through 128.5 full *days* of commercials in their lifetime, according to [one industry estimate](). The point is, it's a lot of ads. But now in the era of live streaming, ads aren't just an annoyance; they're actually causing live feeds to fall behind the real-world action. That's according to DJ Bean, former hockey reporter turned host of the podcast "What Chaos!" who reports that commercial breaks on the ESPN app now run much longer than ads on cable TV. That creates a problem: when the game finally resumes after the ads are finished, what you're watching has now fallen behind what people are seeing live and on cable TV. In other words, anyone who starts streaming the game on ESPN will soon be behind the rest of the world, even though the feed is "live." After an hours-long broadcast, anyone streaming at home is liable to be up to three in-game minutes behind — an unforgivable amount of lag in the sports world, especially if you've got [money riding on the game](). Bean and his co-hosts confirmed this by [recording a live NHL game]() broadcast on the app. "See this ad in the upper right, these things are often two-minutes plus," Bean explains early in the hockey game, when his feed is roughly lined up with the game. When he checks back in after two periods of hockey and a deluge of ads, he's a whopping minute and twenty seconds behind. "Unbelievable," he scoffs. "I've blown this wide open." "Regardless of whether it's ineptitude or purposeful, it definitely need to be fixed," his co-host says. "A minute and a half is f\*\*\*ing ridiculous." https://twitter.com/WhatChaosShow/status/1978573462764454268 When it comes to cable TV ads, most networks [sell air-time]() as 15, 30, 45 or 60 second spots, with 30 seconds being the most popular. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) strictly regulates the timing of [cable TV commercials](). It's the wild west on streaming platforms, however, because Congress hasn't granted the [FCC any authority]() to do the same. In effect, streaming ads can run as long as the app's owners wish. In a statement [to sports industry publication *Awful Announcing*](), ESPN said it's "aware of the problem" and "looking at ways to improve the user experience." "On select Smart TVs, the ESPN app video player is designed to return buffering streams to the point of interruption, ensuring that viewers do not miss content due to latency issues," the statement continues. "However, this behavior also applies to ad breaks. When the video player takes time to populate ads, or if there is buffering time between ads, this can cause users to return to live action late, which can accumulate over time." With hockey season well underway and basketball season [tipping off soon](), ESPN could be in for a rough end of the year unless it can keep up with the puck. **More on sports:** *[LeBron James Not Happy With AI Videos Showing Him Pregnant]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()