It’s an interesting time to be an all-star game in North American pro sports. Major League Baseball hit it out of the park, literally, a few weeks ago with its first ever home run swing-off. In February, the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off was a resounding success. On the other side of the coin, the NFL’s Pro Bowl became so unnecessary that the game is no longer played, while the NBA has been getting killed for years for the total lack of effort on display.
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The WNBA had its own All-Star festivities about two weeks ago, and it was a bit of a mixed bag. Ratings were down, probably owing to Caitlin Clark being sidelined with an injury. The league did get plenty of attention though for the fun and revolutionary StudBudz Livestream and the ‘Pay Us What You Owe Us’ warmup shirts the players wore in solidarity over the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations.
As for the play on the court, it wasn’t much better than what the NBA All-Star Game regularly offers up. Practically no defense was played, and as a result, the 151-131 score was the highest in WNBA history.
Candace Parker blasted the effort of the players on her new Post Moves podcast with Aliyah Boston, saying, “Y’all cannot come out there with those shirts of ‘Pay Us What You Owe Us’ and then do that in the All-Star Game.”
The NBA has found it impossible to motivate its players to play hard at the All-Star Game, but Kelsey Plum dropped an idea on All the Smoke that makes a lot of sense for all parties involved.
“I was thinking, the game is sponsored by Netflix, million-dollar pot,” she suggested. All the Smoke host Matt Barnes chimed in to say, “Y’all got a ton of money, right? I ain’t counting nobody’s pockets but Netflix is not doing bad these days.”
That inspired Plum to up the ante. “I know, I went small with a million-dollar pot. Maybe we should do a $5 million pot, split it 12 ways for the winning roster, and I guarantee people are picking up full-court.”
WNBA players make a pittance compared to their NBA counterparts, so if they could make more in one night than they do all season, Plum is right that the intensity would go way up. Barnes is also on the money that Netflix isn’t exactly light in the wallet.
Not only that, the streaming giant has made sports a real priority in recent years. It’s about to begin year two of its three-season deal with the NFL and in December, it also secured the rights to the next two FIFA Women’s World Cups.
It also began broadcasting WWE’s Monday Night Raw in January. Since then, it has become one of the top destinations for sports documentaries with the Untold series and programs like Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Full Swing, Quarterback and Starting 5.
Plum was one of many athletes to make a cameo in Netflix’s recently-released Happy Gilmore 2, so maybe someone in the Netflix office would be willing to listen to her idea. Stranger Things (also a Netflix show!) have happened.
