NBA fans around the world were disappointed at this year’s All-Star Weekend. The 2025 NBA All-Star Game was held early last weekend in San Francisco at the Chase Center.
The 74th annual All-Star Game was anything short of a classic. The NBA transitioned from the traditional East vs. West matchup to a four-team tournament selected by members of the TNT show, “Inside the NBA.” These four teams then played in a head-to-head tournament, where the winning team left with $1.8 million.
This is not the first time the NBA has implemented new rules for the All-Star games. In 2018, the league diverted from the traditional selections of teams to a draft chosen between two team captains. They kept this format through 2023 before abruptly changing it back for the 2024 season. The 2018 drafted team format received positive feedback from NBA fans, but it eventually got boring after a few years.
The drama had already ensued before the games had even started. Mere hours before the event, NBA legend and all-star select LeBron James announced that he would not play in the game due to foot/ankle discomfort. This broke his 20-year-long streak of consecutive all-star games played. Alongside LeBron, young superstar shooting guard Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves also sat out due to a groin injury. Like James, Edwards announced his injury just hours before the game. Due to them dropping out of the event so late, there was no time for all-star substitutes to be selected. This denied players such as Norman Powell of the Los Angeles Clippers, who has had a career year averaging 24 points per game, almost doubling his career average. This would have been Powell’s first all-star nod in his 10-year career. In the big game, we also lost out on seeing the scoring prowess of the Phoenix Sun’s star, Devin Booker. This enraged fans, who went to social media to share their criticism of Edwards’s and James’s decision.
Hours later, the all-star game started, and it was heavily criticized from the jump. The game broadcast was the first thing that hit a sour note for basketball fans. Kevin Hart was invited to host the event and was also part of the commentating group for the broadcast and the arena. This leads Hart to do a comedic routine during the game, verbally heckling the players through the arena speakers. Now, while Hart is beloved by most, he got under the skin of the fans and players with his “comedic” antics. During the game, OKC Thunder Guard and MVP front-runner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander yelled at Hart to “Wrap it up.”
All these antics and the lack of luster effort in the game created a bad product. The NBA knew this was going to be a disaster from the start. That may be the reason for the unnatural amount of commercials we saw. We received 80 minutes of TV advertising during the program, almost double the time the actual game was on the court. In the 3-hour broadcast, we only received 42 minutes of actual basketball, equaling only 38% of the event. Fans claim that the ASG was an obvious cash grab this year, leaving the NBA community wondering if they should even tune in anymore.
All of this contributed to the decrease in viewership this year. Only 4.7 million viewers joined to watch this year’s midseason classic. That is a 13% decrease from last year’s viewership. Only the 2023 All-Star Game averaged less viewers (4.6 million). This steady decrease might lead to the demise of the yearly tradition. The NBA must look for ways to shake things up for next year’s all-star game in Los Angeles.
