Over the last year or so, we’ve been monitoring LaVar Ball and the Ball family’s every move. It feels like we haven’t missed a LaVar tirade, Lonzo shot or quotable moment in months. Still, people are hungry more. Specifically, they want longer episodes of Facebook Watch’s Ball in the Family.
Its debut episode six months ago garnered just a shade under 27 million views. Each episode since, all roughly 15-20 minutes in length, has generated somewhere from 1.5 to 15 million eyes. Interestingly enough, the last three episodes have all increased in length — and it’s a direct result of the comments section.
“Lavar is goat,” wrote Facebook user Sodnom Baasansuren in the comments of one episode. “Love ur show guys. Keep up the good work. Cant wait longer episodes.”
Ball in the Family has received hundreds of these comments, and uncharacteristically for a media company, Facebook listened. The three most recent episodes have run for 21 minutes, 23 minutes and 26 minutes.
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Coordinating with Facebook has given Bunim-Murray Productions, which produces the show, more creative freedoms. Bunim-Murray’s co-president of entertainment and development, Julie Pizzi, had the following to say to SportTechie back in December: “Working with Facebook was a very unique experience as well. Rules that we had to follow in television, we didn’t have to follow here.”
Not having those extra rules means Facebook Watch has been able to feature even more in depth content from the Ball family. With the extra time, Sunday’s episode dove into the family’s now-rocky relationship with ESPN reporter Jeff Goodman. You wouldn’t believe it, but one of the last few extra minutes focused on LaVar trying to have a closed door conversation with LaMelo and LiAngelo’s coach in Lithuania.
The plan is now for all future episodes of Ball in the Family to be between 20 and 25 minutes. Facebook is paving the way in showing other media companies how to positively respond to viewer feedback.