Tuesday, July 15, 2008

All Star Games

(cross posted on Red Shirt Football blog)

With the MLB All Star game today, it got me thinking about how little I care for the All Star games. And I think that's true for most people these days. Maybe not, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like they don't matter nearly as much as they used to. I feel like even as a kid, back then the build up was bigger and they were more anticipated then they are now. I have a couple reasons for why I think the importance and significance of the all star games (for all sports, not just baseball) is down. The first is just access to games. 15 years ago, heck, 10 years ago, not every game was on TV. Not every game was streamed live on the Internet. The guy that sits in front of me in class watches the gamecast for every Braves game during class. We have Baseball Tonight, Sportscenter, Inside the NBA, a dozen NFL and NCAAF telecasts. We are surrounded by sports coverage now. I think that takes away from it some because we are exposed to both leagues and all teams now. Back in the day, you got coverage of your local and sometimes regional teams, but beyond that, you didn't get to see the everyone play. So, the All Star game was a big deal. 20 years ago, if you were a Red Sox fan, that was probably the first TV coverage you caught of any NL players that year. Another factor is interleague play. We are seeing AL teams, AFC teams, Western conf teams, play against the the NL, NFC, Eastern conf. So, it isn't as special. Also, I don't think the conferences mean as much as they used to. Some of this probably goes back to the vast amount of sports coverage we get now. Divisions still matter, but outside of your division, I just don't feel like AFC vs. NFC, etc doesn't have as much weight to it. Again, these are just ramblings and I'm probably off in left field here. But, I can tell you one guy who won't be watching the All Star game tonight and won't regret my decision at all. I just don't have the motivation to watch a meaningless game whose stats don't even help me out fantasy-wise. Maybe that's how we can get people to watch it: 1) fantasy all star challenge? or 2) legalized gambling on all star games. The game doesn't count anyway, why can't we gamble on it?