Adam Silver's bold vision fails as NBA All-Star Weekend records massive fall in viewership

The 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend didn't have the ratings Adam Silver and the league had hoped for. According to Front Office Sports reporter Ryan Glasspiegel, the 2025 NBA All-Star Game drew the second-least viewers of any previous editions.

This year's All-Star Game drew 4.7 million viewers, down from 5.4 million viewers in 2024. In 2023, it had 4.6 million viewers, the lowest viewership numbers ever recorded.

However, the viewership woes weren't just contained to the All-Star Game. Saturday night's events also had record lows, with just 3.4 million viewers, compared to 4.57 million last year.

While Mac McClung was able to three-peat as the dunk contest champion, this year's All-Star Saturday didn't have the highly-anticipated Steph Curry-Sabrina Ionescu rematch after they closely contested the 3-point contest in 2024.

With viewership numbers down, the league is expected to look at what they can do to turn things around next year. With talks of a potential 1-on-1 tournament already gaining momentum, it will be interesting to see what the NBA comes up with.

One notable thing that will change next year is the production, which will be handled by NBC as part of the NBA's new media rights deal.

This year's All-Star Game also drew controversy for the lack of basketball action, with a reported 34 minutes of game time over the 2.5-hour broadcast. When All-Star Weekend returns next year, NBC will have a chance to put the focus back on basketball.

New NBA All-Star Weekend tournament format draws support from Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns despite criticism from other stars

This year's NBA All-Star Weekend was filled with tons of talk and debate surrounding the lack of interest compared to recent years. To try and entice stars to put their best foot forward, the league implemented an all-new tournament format.

The winner of Saturday's Rising Stars contest, which featured three teams of up-and-coming NBA stars and a team of G League stars, faced three teams of NBA All-Stars on Sunday as part of a mini-tournament.

The format drew criticism from players like Kevin Durant but Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are in favor of it.

“I think it’s interesting," Brunson said on Monday, via the New York Times. "It’s different. The games are kind of short. I like the format. It’s something new, something unique. Maybe, just (raise the) score to 50, maybe. I like how we’re trying new things. But we’ll see going forward. You never really know what to expect, but it was all right.”

Towns said that he felt the level of competition was up, something that fans seemed to echo throughout Sunday's mini-tournament.

“It was great," Towns said. "I thought the competition was up and I think we did a great job of giving the fans a show. I hope the fans appreciate it. I think probably the highlight was getting JB (Brunson) in the first game. I think that’s probably the highlight I have.”

The one gripe both fans and players did seem to like was the stoppages in play. In one instance, Kevin Hart addressed his team during a stoppage in play, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looking confused as to why the play had been paused for so long.

During the championship game, play stopped so the "Inside the NBA" crew could be honored, with Trae Young saying postgame that players felt there were too many lulls.

Whether anything changes during the 2026 All-Star Weekend with NBC in charge of production, only time will tell.