The NBA has been trying their best to bring back value to the All-Star Weekend for years now, especially as the ceremony has dropped in the ratings. The league has attempted to revive this once-grand competition by changing its format and including entertainment, but it seems to only be affecting them negatively.
This past February’s celebrations seemed to be the most ridiculous yet, as they included Kevin Hart as host, but his comments during the game seemed to be more of an unwelcome distraction, than a comedic relief. They also changed the format to a four-team tournament with non All-Stars, which was barely viewed on television.
As this year’s edition has been met with unprecedented criticism, Adam Silver decided to address it during a recent news conference from the NBA’s Board of Governors meeting in New York. The commissioner admitted that their efforts for All-Star have been a failure.
“Sitting there, I thought this was a little better,” the league executive told reporters last week. “But, it was a miss. We’re not there in terms of creating an All-Star experience that we can be proud of and that our players can be proud of.”
Most would agree, that the problem is the lack of aggression and competitiveness. “I think at the height of this, we sell competition,” Silver expressed. “And I think that our players recognize they’re not putting their best foot forward — when there’s a sense that they’re not all-in on playing an All-Star game.”
The NBA commissioner recognized that it isn’t all about entertainment. “We’re both a sport and an entertainment brand,” Silver continued. “We recalibrated for this year’s All-Star game in San Francisco around more of an entertainment product and don’t think it worked.
“The breaks were too long. And I get it. It was an opportunity to celebrate TNT as they were gonna have their last All-Star game,” Adam added. “It was well-intentioned. But I think the long stoppage of play, for example, in that final game didn’t work for anyone. We’re a bit back to the drawing board.”
