Is it time to do away with All-Star games?
All-Star games have been an important part of sports culture for a long time in this country. Each of the “big three” (NFL, MLB, and NBA) has All-Star games where the fans get to vote to see some of their favorite players from across their respective leagues on the same team at the same time.
In theory, the concept of All-Star games is great. I mean, what’s better than seeing Kobe and Chris Paul versus Wade and Dwight Howard? The idea of watching Drew Brees throw to Donald Driver while Von Miller and Ray Lewis try to get a sack is pretty appealing as well.
But the thing is—in most All-Star games, you rarely to never see players actually on defense. And to me, that begs the question: Why should we watch something that isn’t even the sport we love?
Admittedly, I did not watch this past Sunday’s NBA All-Star game—partially because I don’t have cable and partially because I’d rather watch the Oscars—but from the final score you can tell that it wasn’t a real basketball game.
Seriously, 152-149? That’ll never happen in a real game. Ever.
And yes, the games are somewhat nice to look at because you get highlight reels like this one…
…but again, this is not the sport that people love. This is schoolyard nonsense.
Believe me, I understand why players don’t want to play defense in All-Star games—especially in the NFL. People are routinely hurt when they get tackled so they don’t want to overly exert themselves. But let’s be real—the Pro Bowl is a farce.
The fact that this year the commentators were consistently insisting that the plays were just so great and the receivers were running such great routes, and making great football plays—it honestly made me want to throw up. Need more evidence that this game was a farce? Players were allowed to tweet during the game! That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Again, a score of 59-41 is almost never going to happen in the National Football League where a consistant slogan has been “defense wins championships.”
But here’s where I get confused and my argument probably has no merit: We watch this junk!
This past Sunday’s NBA All-Star game drew the second-highest ratings for the game since 2005—and that’s with the game going up against the Oscars. The Pro Bowl telecast on NBC drew 12.5 million viewers, and while that was an eight percent drop from the 2011 Pro Bowl, it was still watched by 1.5 million more people than the 2011 MLB All-Star game—a fact I find crazy since baseball is the only sport that actually plays an All-Star game that remotely resembles the sport fans routinely watch.
My point is this—if the players are so disinterested in playing the game people are actually used to watching, should they even play an All-Star game at all? The NBA already has skills competitions—why not just stick with those except with star players? The NFL would be wise to follow a similar model.
That way, certain players wouldn’t be embarrassed for not shooting at the end of the game like a Superstar should.
Myles Simmons is a Columbia College sophomore. Clearly, he’s not a big fan of All-Star games. He also thought Billy Crystal wasn’t funny at all hosting the Oscars on Sunday. Should’ve brought back that pothead James Franco.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the snoozefest that is the NHL allstar game
Not really a hockey guy, so I’ve never watched it.
I try not to talk completely out of my ass on here.
fair enough. Skills competition is fun though
I can’t imagine why anodbyy would give you less than 5 stars. I love this app! It makes tuning my guitar so quick, easy and accurate. I’m an old-time programmer, and this is the first app I’ve found that didn’t make me say, Yeah, but I can do that just as well (or better) on a REAL computer.
Pro Bowl was beyond terrible this year.
Also gotta figure out a way to make the slam dunk contest relevant again.
Well defintely for me it was the no slnpeieg in my bed and that worked out for me with Brianna. But we both know that Cason was right in the bed with us when he was 6 You know you have issues when your 2 year old is telling you at night not to lock your door so they can come get in the bed later I know I also caved when I let the kids have Krispy Kreme donuts for dinner But you know what, that was a couple of years ago and they still talk about how cool I was for letting them have donuts for dinner that time! I agree. You never know what you will or won’t do when it comes to your kids.
I have to agree, the whole all star weekend for basketball needs to be revamped or refreshed in some way. The players essentially see it as a vacation and that translates directly to their play on the court. It is almost like watching a practice shoot around with nothing on the line or no real incentive to play and to compete. Its exciting to see the big names in the starting line up and then it is downhill from there until the last minute or so when it is a close game.
They need to add incentives. Perhaps, like baseball, make it so that the winning conference gets home court in the finals. They can up the ante with money and make it that the winning players get 200-300k(this can easily be done with sponsors) bonus money.
I’d love to see some additions to other areas of all star weekend. Perhaps some 1-1 tournament matchup? Everyone always loves to compare Kobe vs Lebron, Etc and that would make for an ultimate tournament event. Shane Battier had a great idea on the dunk contest to add a shot blocker as well.
Main point, even as an avid fan, it is borderline unwatchable at this point
hi there! my first time posting on your blog but this post made me laugh. I was just tailnkg to a friend the other day about what she would NEVER do when she has kids lol. We disagree on harnesses/leashes . and don’t get me wrong before i had kids I was adamant that I wouldn’t put a leash on my child as my child was not a dog. However, I now have a 9 year old and 3 year. I also babysit very often. Wellllll needless to say i have 3 harnesses now a monkey, dog, and cat .. when your taking 4 children 8, 4, 3, and 2 to the zoo for a fun day those things come in handy expecially when i realized if I wore a fanny pack i could hook the harnesses on my pack and have my hands free and they had a little more freedom it was wonderful and a lot let stressful then normal. Thanks for the post as it made me smile on this nasty, cold, and snowy texas morning =)