With this week’s Major League Baseball All Star Game set to take place tonight from Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona, all eyes in the pro sports world are tuning into the game…or not. Fan interest seems to be waning about the game, which used to be the highlight of the midway point in the MLB season.
This post from Business Insider poses an admittedly radical suggestion to spark more fan interest in the game: The American and National Leagues taking on the stars from Japan’s baseball league. As they put it:
Instead of American League versus National League, baseball would play two All-Star games. On one night, the American League would play an All-Star team from Japan’s Pacific League, and on the other night, the National League would play an All-Star game versus a team made up of All-Stars from Japan’s Central League.
As the article details, this idea would have a decent chance at expanding the audience of the All Star Game audience to great levels – millions of Japanese people (and others around the globe) would tune in to watch the game, which would take on international flavor, as it would essentially be the greatest and best North American players taking on the top-tier Japanese stars. Considering that neither Hideki Matsui nor Ichiro Suzuki are MLB All Stars this year, that might have proven to be a great idea for this season.
This idea could perhaps turn the All Star Game into something resembling the World Baseball Classic tournaments, which are usually very successful when they pit international squads against each other for bragging rights.
This suggestion by Business Insider is pretty provocative, and would make the MLB All Star festivities much more complicated and taxing for the players involved. Two All Star Games, though, means double the revenue, double the ticket sales, and (hopefully) double the fan interest. It’s definitely a suggestion worth considering, even though the chances of something like it being realized are probably slight.
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