Indiana TV station apologizes for cutting away from Game 1 of NBA Finals in final minute

New York Times

4 days ago

The Indiana Pacers have made a habit of erasing large deficits to steal games late this postseason. And while Game 1 of the NBA Finals was no different, local fans watching on ABC almost missed yet another come-from-behind win by their team and left one local TV station scrambling to explain why a teaser for their newscast almost cost fans the chance to witness another Pacers win.
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WPTA, ABC's affiliate in Indiana, has apologized for cutting away from the game with just over a minute left in the fourth quarter.
Heading into the final minute of game action, the Oklahoma City Thunder were up 110-107 and had possession when Pascal Siakam blocked a layup from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. As the Pacers dribbled the ball up the court, WPTA cut away to its local 11 p.m. Fort Wayne news tease.
'We sincerely apologize for the brief interruption during the NBA game broadcast,' WPTA vice president and general manager Chris Fedele told The Athletic. 'A technical issue in our master control inadvertently triggered the start of our 11:00 PM newscast. The issue was resolved within 24 seconds, and viewers were able to see Tyrese Haliburton's game-winning shot.'
WPTA, the ABC affiliate in Fort Wayne, Indiana, cut away from Game 1 coverage to tease the upcoming news.
Incidentally, one of the segments being teased was a Game 1 Watch Party. pic.twitter.com/PXF5xm81VQ
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 6, 2025
When the network cut back to the game, Indiana had cut Oklahoma City's lead to within one. Viewers were able to watch Haliburton as he scored the buzzer-beater with 0.3 seconds remaining to seal a 111-110 comeback win for the Pacers.
The incident drew comparisons to the infamous 1968 'Heidi Game,' in which NBC's coverage of the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets cut away to the film 'Heidi,' causing viewers on the East Coast to miss the Raiders' comeback win in the final minute.
Earlier this week, SNY cut away from coverage of the New York Mets versus Los Angeles Dodgers game and shifted to FanDuel Sports Network West's broadcast of the Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox.
If you talk to any sports television producer, the cardinal sin of the business is to miss game action. That is the implicit agreement between broadcaster and viewer — you will see everything.
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The ABC affiliate in Fort Wayne cutting away from Game 1 coverage, a self-inflicted error as opposed to a technical one, is the kind of mistake viewers are going to remember for some time. The station is truly fortunate that viewers were able to see the game-winning shot from Haliburton because had that been missed, they not only would have likely lost audience forever, they would have been subjected to years-long loop of the story being replayed whenever an NBA Finals occurred or a story was assigned on the worst sports TV faux pas. The station predictably got crushed on social media, and their mentions in those spaces are not going to be fun to read for management for some time. Usually, the best course of action with this stuff is to acknowledge (check), apologize (check), mock yourself incessantly and then wait for the news cycle to move on, which it will. — Richard Deitsch, media reporter