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4 Nations & A Funeral

As audience attention continues to crater and traditional all-star formats wane, leagues and their broadcast partners are doubling down on new, gimmicky midseason spectacles. Is any of it working?

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NHL 4 Nations Face-Off
This year, the championship game for the 4 Nations tournament drew 16.1 million viewers in North America. The eye-popping numbers might be attributed to a particularly heated political environment, but perhaps an even more significant cultural-fandom dynamic was at work. Photo: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
Julia Alexander
December 2, 2025

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For younger generations in particular, the joy of sports is really all about individual moments: an incredible dunk during an otherwise uneventful NBA opener, a hilarious assist during an October hockey game, a wild play at the plate during a dog-days MLB series. Adam Silver provocatively acknowledged as much when he called the NBA a “highlights league.” The trouble for rights-holders is that many fans aren’t watching those clips on ESPN, or CBS, or even Netflix—each of which paid hundreds of millions, if not billions, to annually broadcast those games. Instead, the engagement is taking place on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube—platforms that are difficult to monetize.

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