Is it still possible to save the All-Star Game? • USA basketball

NBA – A showcase of decades of memories, the All-Star Game is no longer the game for the stars of the Major Leagues. And it seems impossible to save him.

15 years ago, Dwiane Wade crushed Anderson Varejao, and Reggie Miller said on commentary: “Welcome to your Kodak moment, Anderson Varejao”.

The term “Kodak moment”, popularized by the brand’s advertising in the 1980s, was however largely outdated as Kodak was on the verge of collapse at the time, going bankrupt three years later. And if it does eventually exist, the group is no longer the photography giant it was for more than a century, having completely missed the transition from film to digital…

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Besides, the “Kodak moment” now has two meanings. That of the 1980s, when a situation or event seemed so powerful and precious that it deserved to be photographed and physically preserved, and that of the 2010s, when a company realizes too late that the consumer habits of its customers have changed.

From a memory to cherish to a moment to live

All-Star Game connection? In my eyes, the event was created in terms of the first “Kodak Moment”, but now it resembles the second “Kodak Moment”, and the NBA is trying to return to the first definition. Except it’s probably impossible…

“What happened to the ‘Kodak moment’ is a digital and human story.” We stopped taking photos as “memories” and started taking photos as real-time experiences. Some are shared, some are ephemeral, and most are lost forever somewhere on phones and cloud storage services. Unfortunately, Kodak has lost its sense of what a “Kodak moment” could mean for a new generation of consumers. writes Brian Solista well-known digital analyst.

It reminds me of those interviews with musicians who are desperate to see their fans take blurry photos during concerts, even though they pay very good photographers to capture them.

The “Kodak moment” is no longer in the desire to keep the image of a happy memory on a physical medium, “a few oxidized paraffin grains and stupid souvenirs, but which give a little light on rainy days” as Charlie Couture so beautifully said. It is the act of being an actor of one’s own memory and showing it.

The “Kodak Moment” is experienced more than remembered, and I think it fits well with what the players did at the All-Star Game. Because the All-Stars are always happy to meet for the NBA’s annual big crowd. But in an already overloaded schedule, and even though they have no concrete interest in making it a competitive matchup, other than hypothetical individual pride, they also know that memories of the All-Star Game are no longer crucial. Mentally, they switched from Kodak to Instagram stories.

A showcase among many others

It should be remembered that the All-Star Game was founded in 1951 because the basketball world fell into a huge scandal corruption at the university level. Haskell Cohen, in charge of public relations for the NBA, wanted to create happy memories in a very gloomy general atmosphere, and then “commissioner” Maurice Podoloff did not really believe in it. In the end, it was a success, with large audiences seeing the best players in the league, and thus the format went on to become a must-see event in the NBA.

It was a fantastic tool for creating memories, an important center of attention in the dark days of the league, when fans had little opportunity to see the best players. Until the late 2000s, it remained an important marker of the season, an opportunity to gather the creme de la creme of the league, a showcase where the players were shown to the largest number of people.

The development of the Internet and social networks has changed everything. A dunk or block in the regular season can become a much stronger “Kodak moment” than any action in the All-Star Game. NBA players are constantly exposed to the eyes of the whole world, and the all-star game is of no more interest to them than any other.

The multiple formula is changing it will have no effect. The “Kodak moment” of the All-Star Game is gone, and aside from nostalgia, nothing will stop the All-Star Game from going bankrupt as a photography business.