The NBA has made drastic changes to its All-Star Weekend in an attempt to breathe new life into a spectacle that has lost half of its audience.
Todd Boehly and his consortium of US investors didn’t waste any time in ripping up the rulebook after they took over at Chelsea in the summer of 2022.
Their attempts to disrupt the football industry included blowing £1bn on new players, signing stars to absurdly long contracts and hiring legions of off-field staff, with limited success.
Not content with reinventing the wheel, Boehly endeared himself further by suggesting that the Premier League should import the all-star game concept from America.
“Ultimately I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports,” said the LA Dodgers chairman.
“And really starts to figure out, why don’t we do a tournament with the bottom four sports teams, why isn’t there an all-star game?”
Boehly’s act of hubris prompted derision, with then-Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp summing up the mood by quipping: “Does he want to bring the Harlem Globetrotters as well?”
Less than three years later, however, the very concept of the all-star game is in something of an existential crisis in the land that invented it.
USA Today wrote this week: “These aren’t the All-Star Games of the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s or even ’90s. It’s a different time with a different player.”
In a bid to stay relevant, the NBA has made drastic changes to its All-Star Weekend, which will take place this weekend in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
How has the NBA All-Star Weekend changed?
Traditionally a contest between the best players from the Eastern and Western Conferences, this year the NBA has gone back to the drawing board.
Instead the weekend will centre around a tournament of four teams, each offering a different flavour of all-star and coached by a basketball legend.
Charles Barkley’s Global Stars are drawn from the best overseas talent in the NBA, such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Victor Wembanyama; Shaquille O’Neal’s OGs are the biggest names, like LeBron James and Steph Curry; and Kenny Smith’s Young Stars represent the next generation.
WNBA great Candace Parker’s Rising Stars, meanwhile, will be the winners of a qualifying tournament, taking place on the Friday, featuring the best of the NBA’s rookies, sophomores and G-League talent.
Match format has also been tweaked to avoid boring points-fests like last year’s record 211-186 scoreline in the All-Star Game, which marked a line in the sand for NBA boss Adam SIlver.
“There’s no doubt that the players were disappointed as well in last year’s All-Star Game,” Silver said. “We all want to do a better job providing competition and entertainment for our fans.”
All matches, including in the Rising Stars pre-tournament, will be the first to 40 points, while the NBA has also roped in some Hollywood talent to liven up proceedings.
Comedian and actor Kevin Hart will perform the role of celebrity MC, providing live commentary from courtside. If it all sounds a little confused, well, perhaps it is.
Highlighting an inherent contradiction, USA Today wrote: “The league wants players to take the game more seriously, but a funnyman will have jokes during the game.”
The weekend will also feature the usual array of slam dunk, three-point and skills contests.
Why has the NBA changed the All-Star Game?
This shake-up is designed to arrest declining interest, with TV viewing figures on US network TNT falling by half in 20 years.
Last year’s match attracted 5.5m viewers in the US – a considerably smaller audience than the BBC has drawn in the UK alone for live matches in the early rounds of the FA Cup.
Still, NBA All-Star Weekend remains popular with sponsors. This year’s backers include motor oil brand Castrol, telco giant AT&T, insurer State Farm and carmaker Kia.
It also appeals to host cities, with last year’s weekend generating over $400m in economic value to Indianapolis and central Indiana, according to the Temple University Sports Industry Research Center.
NBA All-Star 2024 garnered $112m in earned media value, including 3.2bn views and 24bn impressions on social media, the report found.
With Boehly now invested in the Hundred franchise Trent Rockets and the ECB keen to innovate with its new partners, perhaps English cricket can look forward to its own all-star contest.