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Avishka Fernando
Mrs. Hamren
ENGL 101-029
27 January 2019
The New Format for The NBA All Star Game
For as long as one can remember, the format of the NBA All Star game has always been
the Eastern conference against the Western conference. However, of recent, fans have started
opposing the age-old format of East vs West due to the lack of competitiveness. The Western
conference is almost always heavily favored to win the All Star game, thus resulting in the NBA
presenting a new format of the All Star game.
As of 2018, the NBA All Star game has no longer required players to remain in their
respective conference, therefore players such as Lebron James (East) and Kevin Durant (West)
are now able to compete on the same team. The new format carries forward the old format’s
voting system of five starters from each conference, although now these 10 players are put into a
pool from which they are drafted to one of the two teams. There are two captains who are the
highest vote-getters, representing the East and West. The two captains then take alternative turns
at drafting players into their teams, making it a mix of both Eastern and Western conference
players on each team.
In addition to the attempt at making the All Star game more competitive, the NBA now
gives each player on the winning team a cash bonus of $100,000; which is almost double the
amount previously earned for winning the All Star game. Another request of the fans was that the
draft be nationally televised, which was not done for the 2018 All Star game; but will be
introduced for the 2019 All Star weekend. Nationally televising the All-Star draft not only brings
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more excitement to the fans but can also generate more revenue for the league as a result of fans
purchasing NBA league pass subscriptions to tune into the draft. Overall, in the short-term, the
new format has looked like a huge success.
