Randy Pedersen said it right at the beginning when they discusses the scoring fiasco. ESPN was actually willing to comply for once, and understood the PBA was going to go over its usual 1.5 hour timeslot, and told them to do whatever was necessary in order to do things properly.
So the answer to how the PBA could afford today is that they didn't have to, ESPN was very accomodating about the situation, which is definately a good sign.