The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 388 A word is settled
The 1987 All-Star Weekend will be held at Seattle’s massive Kingdom Stadium.

Prior to 1985, Kingdom Arena was the home of the SuperSonics. In the 85-86 season, the SuperSonics moved their home to the smaller, more modern KeyArena.

In recent years, NBA teams have gradually moved away from super-large multi-purpose arenas like Kingdome to smaller, more modern basketball arenas with better facilities.

The Detroit Pistons were preparing to move from the Silver Top Center to the Palace of Auburn Hills, a new arena that broke ground in 1986 and was expected to be completed and put into use in 1988.

While super-large comprehensive stadiums have numerous seats and offer a magnificent feeling of being in a cathedral when playing games inside, their corresponding drawback is that the facilities are not complete.

The seating for the audience is temporary; forget about VIP seats. Buying and selling drinks and food is also very difficult, as there's no way to set up dedicated shops, so they can only operate mobile stalls.

This is undoubtedly detrimental to the NBA's efforts to improve the viewing experience for fans. Therefore, these super-large multi-purpose stadiums and some old venues built in the 50s and 60s will be gradually phased out and replaced by newly built modern basketball arenas.

However, the advantages of a super-large stadium become apparent when hosting large-scale gala events like All-Star Weekend.

There's no other reason than one word: big. And add one more word: many. It can accommodate enough audience members to ensure ticket revenue.

Before David Stern took office in 1984, the NBA All-Star Game had become increasingly lackluster, failing to attract fans to attend or secure full television broadcasts.

At that time, former NBA Commissioner Larry O'Brien proposed the concept of "All-Star Weekend," aiming to expand the All-Star Game, which originally consisted of only one monotonous game, into two days with a variety of performances.

At the time, this idea was considered somewhat far-fetched. Holding an All-Star game was already a loss enough, let alone two days and other activities? Would fans be interested?
After Stern took office, he realized Larry O'Brien's vision by expanding the All-Star Game into All-Star Weekend and designing events such as the Slam Dunk Contest, the Legends Challenge, and the Three-Point Contest to fill the two days, fully entertaining fans and viewers.

The reforms, implemented in just two seasons, have yielded significant results.

The first batch of over 10000 tickets for the All-Star Game, priced at $10 each, sold out in just 31 minutes.

After all 32742 tickets were sold out, the ticketing team decided to sell an additional 5000 "remote viewing tickets".

Because the Kingdom Arena is big enough, and the tickets for the stands were sold out, they built another ring of stands to add 5000 seats.

To be honest, the NBA isn't ruthless enough. The Kingdom can hold more than 80000 spectators. If they let the market open up, they might be able to sell all of them.

Add some hanging tickets and dangling tickets, and selling 10 tickets will definitely set a new record for attendance in North American sports history.

Because tickets sold so well, the NBA All-Star Game became very lucrative, so preparations for the 1988 Chicago All-Star Game began as early as November 1986.

The success of the All-Star Game is inseparable from the official operation of the NBA, and even more so from the brilliance of the stars of the 80s.

Gan Guoyang, the All-Star vote leader, caused a great commotion at the airport when he arrived in Seattle.

Portland and Seattle are very close to each other, and the two cities have a lot of ties. Gan Guoyang has a huge number of fans in Seattle.

From the moment he stepped off the plane, a large number of reporters followed him, taking pictures and asking questions.

This is completely different from the situation in 1985; the level of attention garnered by the NBA All-Star Game has increased by more than one order of magnitude.

What drew even more attention was that Gan Guoyang announced before the All-Star Game that he would participate in the Three-Point Contest, along with his teammate Vandeweghe.

A center participating in a three-point contest, well... that doesn't seem like much. Gan Guoyang isn't the only center in the league who can shoot threes.

Gan Guoyang averaged 1.4 three-point attempts per game in the regular season, which is more than most perimeter players in the league.

With a 42% three-point shooting percentage and an average of 0.58 three-pointers per game, he claims that his shooting percentage would improve if he took more shots.

If you don't invest enough, you won't develop a feel for the game.

The Trail Blazers' other three-point specialist, Vandeweghe, shot the league's highest three-point percentage at 48%.

His three-point shooting this year has been outstanding in both quantity and accuracy, proving that his hard work in the summer has paid off.

However, the three-point contest is a great test of a player's stamina, shooting touch, and mental fortitude.

Larry Bird is dominant in this regard, having easily taken first place last year and mocked all the other contestants.

Bird has registered for the competition again this year.

Actually, Bird didn't want to participate; he had already won the championship and was satisfied.

It's not like we're talking about the NBA championship, why keep trying to win it? Wouldn't it be better to let someone else take the top spot?
But the league needs viewership and star players to participate in such competitions, otherwise viewers won't like watching.

Who wants to watch players whose names you can't even remember normally go out on the court and shoot three-pointers?

At David Stern's request, Larry Bird agreed to participate again.

Meanwhile, Gan Guoyang and Bird agreed to participate in the Three-Point Contest, which further fueled Bird's enthusiasm. However, the person Gan Guoyang truly wanted to challenge was not Bird, but someone else entirely.

Surrounded by bodyguards, Gan Guoyang arrived at the Ritz Hotel in Seattle by car.

The hotel's exterior was renovated for the NBA All-Star Game, with $3.5 worth of lighting installed.

The purpose of these lighting fixtures is to illuminate the entire hotel building, turning the NBA All-Star Game banner hanging on the building into the most dazzling sign in the city at night.

The dinner that evening featured an incredibly lavish buffet, including rare delicacies like venison and a wide variety of seafood.

Venison is known for being difficult to process, and making it delicious is even more challenging, which shows how much effort the NBA puts into it.

The organizing committee also invited members of local Native American tribes in Washington State to perform for the athletes and their families.

As Gan Guoyang, holding a wine glass, mingled with Wang Fuxi at the banquet, he felt for a moment that he wasn't an NBA player, but rather a member of parliament or a corporate executive.

David Stern is gradually cultivating a high-end image for the NBA, pulling it out of the mire of drugs and violence in order to attract more attention from the middle and upper classes.

Many people greeted Gan Guoyang, and he responded with a smile, but his mind was not on these people, including Charles Barkley.

Upon seeing Barkley, Gan Guoyang immediately went up to him and asked, "Charles, where's Michael? Have you seen Michael?"

Barkley, a first-time All-Star this season, wandered around looking uncomfortable in an ill-fitting suit.

Seeing Gan Guoyang was like seeing a lifeline. When he heard that Gan Guoyang was looking for Jordan, Barkley said, "I haven't seen Michael... he doesn't seem to have come over yet."

"Damn it, that son of a bitch is actually avoiding me."

"What, does Michael owe you money?"

"He owes me money? I don't care about the money, what matters is that he didn't keep his promise to me."

A short while later, Jordan arrived late but still appeared at the banquet venue.

He was dressed in formal attire, accompanied by his girlfriend Juanita and his parents.

Gan Guoyang rushed over to Jordan as soon as he saw him, but Jordan, upon seeing Gan Guoyang, acted as if he had seen a creditor, letting go of his girlfriend's hand and darting towards the crowd.

But the banquet hall was only so big, and there was no way to escape. Gan Guoyang finally caught Jordan and said, "Michael, you fucking don't answer my calls again."

"My home phone bill is overdue."

"Bullshit. Have you forgotten what you promised me at the All-Star game?"

"What did I promise you? I don't remember."

"No, no, no, Michael, you remember, that's why you're avoiding me. The Three-Point Contest!"

Jordan looked at Gan Guoyang helplessly. He had indeed promised Gan Guoyang, "If you participate in the three-point contest, I will participate too."

But he never expected that Gan Guoyang, that lunatic, would actually sign up for the three-point contest!

Jordan has already signed up for the Slam Dunk Contest, but he has absolutely no confidence in his three-point shot.

He didn't want to embarrass himself in the three-point contest.

"You broke your promise, Michael."

"I can't participate now even if I want to, because the registration deadline has passed."

"Don't give me that, Michael. If you want to participate, the organizing committee will absolutely agree immediately."

"Then why don't you participate in the dunk contest?"

"I'll participate! Do you think I'm afraid? Do you believe I can win the dunk contest?"

Gan Guoyang's words ignited Jordan's competitive spirit, and he immediately said, "If you participate in the dunk contest now, I'll immediately participate in the three-point contest!"

“Okay, it’s a deal. I’ll go find Stern right away.”

(End of this chapter)