In North American big four major sports, All Star games at the halfway point or just after the season concludes, has become a staple for betting expert enthusiasts to wager on. However, over the last few years, the All Star games have become rather stale, as new ideas to spice up the games do more to deter fans from watching. Last night was the MLB All Star Game, and with so many MLB betting stars skipping the game, the end result was nothing to promote. Today we will be looking at what to do exactly with the All Star game.For baseball handicappers, the MLB World Series plays a huge role in the quality of teams sent to the All Star Game. Essentially, baseball is the only one of the four major North American sports leagues, to entice players to play hard, as the winning league receives home field advantage in the World Series. In the other three sports leagues, the NFL, NBA and NHL, more and more of each league’s top stars are finding ways to get out of playing in the All Star Game, as they would rather spend time with family rather than their peers.
Are All Star Games losing their appeal? Absolutely, as we just noted most players try to avoid going to their league’s midway event. Meaning to say, if the players don’t want to go, then why should the fans even care about the game? Now it should be noted, that while many athletes attempt to skip the games, others are thrilled to go and are attempting to spice things up.
A betting expert example, the NHL and MLB both used unique concepts to entice fans to tune into the 2011 All Star Games. The NHL selected two captains for each squad, and allowed them to choose the players that were voted into the All Star Game for their respective teams. With the game’s best players picking the teams, fans from all 30 franchises were able to see where their favorite stars ranked in their peers eyes. Unfortunately for the Toronto Maple Leafs, star winger Phil Kessel was picked last. But Kessel was awarded a car and $20,000 to charity for being the last selected.
On the other hand, in the MLB, two captains were also selected in order to put together teams for the Home Run Derby. As a result of both of these ideas, fans tuned in thus allowing for the ratings for the events to go up. Nevertheless, many of our sports writing colleagues would argue, that the NHL All Star draft and MLB Home Run Derby super teams, is an acknowledgement that the All Star Games itself is losing appeal.
In our opinion, rather than have an All Star Game, the big four should make each half of their seasons more enticing. For instance, in the Florida State League for baseball, the season is broken into two 70 game halves, with the divisional leaders at each half way point automatically qualifying for the playoffs. If the big four adopted a similar concept, fans would be more intrigued to watch the games, in the first half of the season, since there is something at stake.
