Fixing the NBA All Star Game

One of the biggest topics for the NBA is the lack of interest in the NBA All Star Game. Anyone that has watched it over the last several years know how the game is no longer as interesting as previous generations. Different gimmicks have been tried and none of them seem to work. They tried picking teams and are now in talks to do something else to gain interest.

Before you can fix the problem you have to know what the problem is. The overall view is the game is not fun to watch. If you go a little deeper you will see the games are not competitive. If you go deeper still, you will see the players have a lack of interest. All of this means the NBA has a bad product.

I like to say, you know you have a bad product by the complexity of the packaging. The NBA is starting to make more and more complex packaging for the All Star Game. During the 80's, 90's and early 2000's the All Star Game didn't need help advertising itself. The quality of the game was good enough that fans were excited to see it. Unfortunately, things started to change in the mid 2000's.

In my opinion, that is the AAU era of ball players and the face of the NBA during that era is LeBron James. The ball players of said era are more friendly on the court than previous ones. So that leads to the perception of a less competitive league. Then the way LeBron decided to not enter the Slam Dunk Contest was the beginning of the players devaluing the weekend. With LeBron being the face of the league, everyone else goes as he goes.

So now the league is looking for ways to bring interest back to the game. The NBA decided to use a four-team pick up game tournament. My solution, its time for a changing of the guard. Give the older and less interested players something else to do where they are more interactive with the fans and let the younger more competitive players play. Its time to showcase the next generation of players. They seem to be more inclined to put on a competitive show than the older players.

I don't think more gimmicks is the way to go. The players just have to care more about putting on a better show. These are the top players in the NBA so this game should be the best exhibition game of the year. The players should be wanting to show off their skills against the best of the best. Until we get enough players to see the All Star Game in that way, the league will continue to have declining ratings. If ratings decline too far then there will be nothing for the NBA to fix.