The bright lights come out. Huge crowds come from miles away. The biggest names in sports are on display. I must be talking about the Olympics, right? Nope.
This year, the looming entity that is the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will easily overshadow the annual exhibitions of top athletes from around the globe (well, more like around the Americas/a few European countries): the all-star games. While Major League Baseball gets to feature its biggest and best on a sunny day in the middle of July, the other major U.S. sports are left fighting to stand out as the best showcase over the course of a few months in the winter.
The all-star celebrations start on the last weekend of January where the NFL and the NHL must duke it out for viewers. Considering this is sports, there’s no better way to decide who goes first than flipping a coin. Tails. NFL. Awesome.
Just last year, the NFL started airing a skills competition that has added a little bit of fun to an event that had previously just been the big game and a handful of minor events surrounding it. It adds another dimension to the experience and gives the league’s best the chance to show off their talents in some fun-to-watch challenges. Despite this, the football celebration that falls a week before the Super Bowl hasn’t been able to keep up the same number of viewers due to plummeting appeal.
To start things off, none of the players on the two Super Bowl-bound teams (arguably some of the league’s best) can participate in the event. On top of that, players who can go have sometimes decided to opt-out of the opportunity because of growing injury concerns. The end product is a bunch of second string all-stars playing with kid gloves on so they don’t get hurt in a game that doesn’t matter. It’s not the best.
On to the NHL.
This year’s celebration of all things hockey took place in Tampa, Fla. The festivities got underway on Friday, Jan. 26, with a concert headlined by Fitz & the Tantrums. On Saturday, we got the skills competition which, much like the NFL’s version, features various fun competitions that let the league’s best show off their stuff.
On Sunday, we get the big game. Well, games. Over the past decade, the NHL has played around with how the teams are built up and how many players are on a team. In 2011, the league switched to a “fantasy draft” where fans would vote on team captains and then the captains would draft the remaining all-star players. In 2015, they made another switch to the 3-on-3 format we see now with four eleven-man teams that represent each division.
With $1 million on the line for the winning team, there’s a decent enough bit of competition between the players, but just as with the NFL, you can tell that players won’t play as aggressively as they might on any other night. Beyond the games, there are all sorts of autograph opportunities and mascot events that make the event an enjoyable experience.
Next up is the NBA All-Star Game which takes place in mid-February. The events started on Friday, February 16, with the always popular celebrity game, featuring some of the biggest Hollywood stars. That’s was followed by the Rising Stars game that shows off the talents of the NBA’s top young stars. Saturday was a wet dream for highlight compilation editors, featuring the skills competition, the three-point challenge and the dunk competition.
Then onto Sunday, we had the big game. This year, the NBA has decided to make the switch from a conference-based system to a draft that took place in January much like the system the NHL used in 2011-12. Some fans took to social media after the event expressing that they were disappointed by the lack of television coverage of LeBron James and Stephen Curry picking their all-star teams, so that’s something to look out for when selection time comes around next year. Overall, the NBA knows how to put on a show and they continue to make things more fun year after year.
Finally, months down the road we have the MLB all-star game. Unlike the other leagues, Major League Baseball doesn’t really have to stick to the Friday-Saturday-Sunday structure. Instead, they opt to have a few smaller events sprinkled throughout the weekend like the Sirius XM All-Star Futures Game and the All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game.
Then on Monday we get the baseball equivalent of a skills competition, the Home Run Derby. Eight of the biggest sluggers in the game duke it out over the course of three rounds of explosive power. Finally, on Tuesday we have the all-star game itself. In past years, the winning team was awarded home field advantage for their league’s representative in the World Series but starting last season they dropped the rule. Now it’s just about baseball and sunshine.
If I had to compare the four, the NBA easily comes in first. It has the most exciting content and still shows opportunities for growth in the future. The second spot is a toss-up between the NHL and the MLB. The NHL is much like the NBA in terms of its content. The skills competitions are fun and the 3-on-3 format has a “kids playing on a homemade rink in the backyard” feel to it. The only thing that might be holding it back from the top spot is the overall lack of enthusiasm for the sport nationwide when compared to the other big leagues in the United States. Baseball makes up for its lack of content by being perfectly placed on the calendar.
The fact of the matter is there’s really nothing else going on in the sports world in the middle of July. On top of that, watching baseball on a mid-summer day is as deeply woven into Americana as country music and cherry pie. It’s hard to fight that.
In at number four we have the NFL but not for lack of trying. They’ve started to expand what all the weekend entails and have added a needed skills competition element. Unfortunately, quantity of events doesn’t help fix the quality of the product. Even the country’s most popular game can’t get away with having a lineup of B-list all-stars play at half the intensity we’re used to seeing on any given Sunday.
Have your own opinion on which league has the best mid-season spectacle? Comment below or let us know @chronicleNCC.
