ADDvertising the Game: Sports gimmicks n' such

So it was announced just this past Thursday that David Stern has approved an idea to allow for the 2010 NBA All Star game to be played outdoors at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. The prior festivities - skills challenge, rookie vs. sophmore game - will be played indoors at the American Airlines Center, home of the Dallas Mavericks.

And thus the never-ending reinvention of North American sport continues - some of the ideas good, others completely unnecessary, at least in this writers opinion. With Winter Classics a regular event in the NHL, the NFL hosting regular season games in London, England also becoming common, and the NBA taking it outdoors in a tennis court this preseason it seems the gimmicks never end. Even though the XFL disbanded and the MLS moved away from that god awful breakaway penalty shot format, the big players in North American sport still seem to have a need to distract the fans as much as possible to keep them interested.

My question is has the level of play dried up that much? Or are we now just so quick to lose interest thanks to our on demand world we live in that we need new spectacles constantly set before us or else we're going elsewhere? Are we not entertained?? It's almost worth questioning if we're progressing to that point where the intro sequence to BASEketball, or those old Bud Light Commercials (Sumo High Diving, Full Contact Golf), will soon become a reality. Leagues change rules, add instant replay, increase/decrease the size of their equipment, they do so many things purely based around the response of the fans that it may not be unreasonable to suggest some huge amendment really isn't too far off.

Personally I feel that seating 100,000 for an all star game is a bit absurd, it works for hockey but you're also covering more of the field with a hockey rink. Placing the court at midfield they're barely going to be able to cover the star - I know people WILL still buy the tickets, but being stuck in the nosebleeds for that one is not something I'd be too interested in personally! But I guess some will revel in the fact that they were one of 100,000 there, watching the All Star game thru their binoculars.

For now guess it's just worth the wait to see if the inevitable happens and they decide to host a soccer game on a cruise ship, while watching any other new developments that may come along the way to keep us sports nuts happy and content.