By Frank Pingue
(Reuters) -Once a much-anticipated celebration of a sport’s best talents, All-Star games have fallen into a constant state of reinvention amid a high-stakes effort by North American leagues to make their star-studded showcases a ratings hit.
Several factors, including a lack of competitive furor and athletes’ ability to use social media to engage with fans from around the globe, have left many to wonder whether the standard All-Star Game model is broken.
“All-Star Games used to be an opportunity for players to build their brand,” Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing analyst in San Francisco, told Reuters.
“Now there are so many other ways to do that, that it became less important for players to have to show up in these games and play well.”
Just this week Argentine great Lionel Messi, who is Major League Soccer’s reigning Most Valuable Player, decided not to participate in the MLS All-Star Game held in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday despite not being injured.
North America’s Big Four sports leagues have for years been tinkering with the formats for their All-Star showcases in hopes of creating more competitiveness and additional interest in an exhibition game.
The NHL ditched its All-Star Game this year in favour of an international tournament called 4 Nations Face-Off that proved to be a success in many metrics including attendance, television ratings and, perhaps most importantly, player buy-in.
Even NBA Commissioner Adam Silver referenced the NHL’s model when discussing future changes to his league’s showcase after admitting the new format for February’s NBA All-Star Game, which featured a mini-tournament of four teams, was “a miss.”
The NFL’s all-star showcase was often missing many top players who were either injured, uninterested or Super Bowl bound and so in 2022 they replaced it with Pro Bowl Games, which features skills events and a flag football game.
Last week’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which for the first time was decided by a home-run swing-off, averaged 7.19 million viewers on Fox, down 3.5% from last year and the second-lowest for the Midsummer Classic.
Still, MLB’s showcase drew far better than its counterparts, with the NBA All-Star Game and the NFL’s Pro Bowl Games each averaging 4.7 million viewers in February.
“There was a time when every All-Star Game was a can’t-miss event and people were excited and thrilled,” said famed U.S. sports agent Leigh Steinberg, best known as the inspiration for Tom Cruise’s character in the film “Jerry Maguire”.
But despite the idea that All-Star Games and related events are experiencing a decline in popularity, they still provide leagues with an opportunity for massive brand activation, which experts say is where the real value lies.
The lead-up to an All-Star Game offers leagues a chance to connect with the city they are in that week through initiatives like community events, upgrading sport facilities, equipment donations, school visits and fan festivals.
“When you look at it just as one game on one day, that’s not really what the value is,” said Joe Favorito, a long-time sports marketing professional and professor at Columbia University.
“The value is everything that leads up to it and everything else that is tied into what the culmination of the game is. The reality is the actual game is probably the least important part of what an All-Star activation is these days.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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