All Star Weekends are completely useless. With the multiple platforms available to view NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB games we are able to watch our favorite teams and stars any time we want. I can watch the Bulls on my TV with NBA League Pass while watching Lin on my laptop. NFL Sunday Ticket makes it where I can have a multi window option watching multiple games at once. MLB Extra Innings and NHL Center Ice allow me to watch more sports than I could possibly ever watch. If a hot new player emerges, I can track him.
We also have Sportscenter to show us the highlights of players to get on our radar. Sportscenter does a great job of showing the best plays of game without me having to sit through the whole game. And as soon as Sportscenter puts it on, it becomes viral on youtube.
All Star games were a necessity back in the early days of the big four sports because fans were unable to follow their favorite stars and teams. If you were in L.A. and a Yankees fan, you only got to see the box score and if you were lucky, a nationally broadcast game before the World Series. And interleague match-ups were unheard of for the MLB and NFL. Now they happen throughout the season in the NFL and starting next year, will happen the entire season in MLB. We can see Ichiro take on the Phillies. We can see Albert Pujols take on his old team. We are in the golden age of sports!
However, the performances in All Star Games is anything but golden. The NFL Pro Bowl was a complete joke. The defenses were only on the field for show. Their effort was an embarrassment and allowed for more offense than you'd normally see in an NFL game. The NHL All Star Game continually ends up with scores of 12-10 and even higher because defense isn't played. It's also the same in the NBA All Star Game where everyone competes to have the craziest dunk or biggest show off moment. The only All Star Game that matters right now is the MLB All Star Game and that's because it ended in a tie back in 2002. The brilliant solution: Make the winning league have home field advantage in the World Series. That is a hugely convoluted idea that makes the regular season record useless. A 100 win, division winning AL team could lose out on home field advantage to an 89 win NL wild card team. Where is the sense in that?
The All Star Game was needed back in the day. Take it away and give us more regular season match-ups.
I like your proposed solution, but it is a little controversial given that the all star performance could be decided by players that aren't involved in the actual World Series game. If only the all stars actually played like all stars during the all star game, we wouldn't have this problem. I'm interested to hear if there are other ideas.
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