The NHL has taken a big win by becoming global and fighting midseason slump, leaving behind other major professional sports leagues in North America to reflect on what they can do to reinvigorate a boring All-Star break.
The Top League of Hockey spent the All-Star break in February. It was a seven-game competition featuring national teams from the US, Canada, Sweden and Finland, and was a huge success for hockey stubborns and new followers of the sport.
Canada won the tournament with a thrilling overtime victory over the US in a championship matchup that was viewed by 16.1 million viewers in North America. It has 9.3 million in the US and 6.3 million in Canada.
It became the second most viewed hockey game in the last decade, tracking only game 7 from last year’s Stanley Cup final.
“We’ve been working hard to get into the business of our team,” said Lauren Anderson, director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon Lundquist Business.
So, can the other leagues be set in four country versions of hockey? Anderson is skeptical.
“Everyone sees the success of four countries and is worried that everyone will run and run to do something. That’s not special,” she said. “It won’t be of high quality.”
Fans and players criticized last week’s NBA All-Star Weekend and showed it in ratings. According to Front Office Sports, the game fell 13% year-on-year, attracting just 4.7 million viewers. It was the second lowest All-Star game in the last 25 years.
ESPN NHL analyst PK Subban said much of it was based on the efforts that NBA players put into it.
The four countries were “the most viewed games we’ve had in years,” Subban said. It is based on play, honor, play for the guy next to you. I had a question for an NBA player – what exactly are you playing for? What are you playing for? ”
Fordham University professor Mark Conrad said he hopes that other leagues will one day reformat the All-Star Game to something more convincing than current products.
“These (NBA and 4 Nations Nations NHL All-Star Game) are jokes and the Pro Bowl is ridiculous,” said Conrad, who teaches sports law at Fordham’s business school.
MLB already has World Baseball Classic
Baseball officials have suggested that there is no need to stage midseason international tournaments as they have already won the world’s baseball classics, as they brought the planet’s best competition to spring competitions in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2023.
The next tournament will be in March 2025.
Organizers from four countries have already benefited from hitting the clock for their North American employers, putting almost all of the world’s best hockey players here.
The four-country baseball form could not include three-time WBC champions Japan or South Korea, and third and second-place finishers in 2006 and 2009, and will compete in the domestic league in July.
The best US, Dominican and Venezuelan baseball players have contracts for MLB teams, so competition like the four countries takes place during the All-Star break, but only Western Hemisphere teams.
Conrad and Anderson questioned whether a game involving non-American teams in 2017 and non-Japanese teams that won in 2023 would be competitive enough to attract viewers’ interest.
“I don’t know about the competitive balance between the US, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela,” Conrad said. “I think there’s a risk like a 15-0 game.”
That contrasts with the 4 Nations closed hockey game tournament. Only one of the seven contests was blown away. The rest was either a one-goal or two-goal game with empty net scores.
The success of the four countries really has to do with how the league is built and the players’ structure,” Anderson said. “Leaders are not built on this like the NHL. Here you can have four equally strong and competitive teams.”
Also, if ugly labor is expected after the 2026 season, it is doubtful whether MLB wants to play ball with the union to negotiate for midseason international competition.
“Of all the All-Star games out there, the All-Star Game in baseball is considered the best,” Conrad said. “You still get pretty good reviews and it’s no joke that the NHL and NBA All-Star Games are. They’re jokes.”
Last season’s MLB All-Star Game attracted 7.44 million viewers on Fox, up 6% year-on-year.
Good hoops from all over the world
The US won five consecutive basketball gold medals in Paris last summer, but it wasn’t a cakewalk.
The Americans had to rally from a 17-point deficit against Serbia in the semi-finals before Steph Curry continued his hero in the title game victory over France.
While many of the best international players are suitable for NBA clubs, most non-American elites are employed in Europe.
Of the 10 players who participated in the Serbian Bronze Medal Award-winning game in Germany, six have traded in Europe this season. Of the 12 players who got minutes for France in the gold medal game against the US, seven have played in Europe this season.
Fordham Professor Conrad said he would be more upwards towards midseason international basketball tournaments than the baseball version.
“Basketball is such an international game right now, and baseball isn’t that much,” he said.
He said it is feasible despite the logistical headache of bringing players from other corners in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Serbia and other Europe for potential international competitions in the midseason.
“It’s going to be difficult. You’ll have to find time to do it,” he said. “But if you can change your schedule while in the middle of the football schedule that the World Cup has done in Qatar, you can do that. I think you have the will to do that. I think you can do that because of a very short, intense series. I think that’s very possible.”
The success of the NHL’s Four Nations showdown was a stark contrast to the NBA All-Star Game.
Anderson argued that weekends of non-game events play an important role in pop culture.
“The NBA All-Star Game, that event is about influencers,” Anderson said. “It’s about entertainment. It’s about sponsorship. It’s about everything that’s really going on the weekend.”
Pro Bowl is dead
Of course, soccer is a unique American sport, so international play is not a real option.
And given the brutal physical nature of football, it’s probably not a star to add an extra game that doesn’t lead to the Super Bowl.
Players’ apathy and half-speed plays have ultimately concluded that the league will not be able to continue the regular game charade. Therefore, since February 5, 2023, the Pro Bowl has been a contactless flag football game.
Conrad said he doesn’t think there’s much fan protest if the NFL and NBA abolish all All-Star Game events together.
“The Pro Bowl is ridiculous and they’re trying to come up with new ways and gimmicks,” Conrad said. “So it’s easier to chuck them. I don’t think the world will be unhappy if you chuck them.”
Football fans under the age of 60 struggle to remember that the NFL once staged the third-place game, the Playoff Bowl.
The playoff bowl “had no meaning, but it had little meaning,” said former Green Packers split-end Boyd Dowler and two-time Super Bowl champion Boyd Dowler, who also played in two third place games.
Legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi hated the playoff bowl, but was once called “Hinky Dink’s soccer match held in the town of Hinky Dink.”
The playoff bowl had no real hope to maintain power if a guy like Lombardi who won everything didn’t make a full commitment to it.
“At the time, (Lombardi) was probably caring for him (about winning the playoff bowl).
