[In 1982, CBS's sports programming advertising department was struggling. Not all advertising slots during NBA games were filled. Sometimes, as a Sunday game approached, on Friday afternoons there would be a "fire sale," selling those advertising slots at extremely low prices.]
[A 30-second advertising slot could go for as little as $5,000, and this was CBS, the largest TV station in America, advertising during a live broadcast to a national audience.]
[By 1986, during the first game of the NBA Finals between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Boston Celtics, Sunny Gan's dunk broke the hoop at the Garden, delaying the game almost 20 minutes.]
[Those 20 minutes became an unplanned advertising slot, and the advertising department of CBS was inundated with calls, eager to snap up the time slot for ads, and the department was unusually busy as the ad prices climbed.]
