What happens when you trade flashy dunks and celebrity photo ops for real national pride and blood-on-the-ice competition? You get a moment that not only shook up hockey but stole the spotlight from the NBA. That’s exactly what happened in February 2025, when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman made the bold call to scrap the traditional All-Star Weekend and replace it with something far more intense: the Four Nations Face-Off. While Adam Silver was rolling out the same old NBA All-Star format, the NHL delivered a tournament that had players brawling nine seconds into the opening game, fans on the edge of their seats, and America watching in record numbers. But the real win?
The matchups were no joke, USA, Canada, Sweden, and Finland, each stacked with NHL talent, met in Montreal and Boston for a week of hard-hitting, best-on-best hockey. The energy was electric. When Connor McDavid scored the overtime winner in the final to beat Team USA, it capped off a tournament that drew over 9.3 million viewers in the U.S. alone, the highest non-Olympic NHL viewership ever. Now, five months later, the man behind the move, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is finally speaking out.
In a new video clip posted by Pat McAfee on X, Bettman joined The Pat McAfee Show and was asked whether that Four Nations moment felt like a real turning point for hockey in the U.S. “Talk about the state of the sport,” McAfee said. “It feels like that was a real, like, kickstart to hockey becoming a huge part of Americana.” Bettman agreed. “I think over the last three decades, we’ve seen an upward trajectory pretty consistently,” he said. “On Four Nations, it was the pent-up demand for international best-on-best competition. We think we do that as well, if not better, than anybody.” He emphasized how much it meant to the players, so much that some returned to their NHL clubs injured, having left everything on the ice for their countries.
“There was so much demand for international best on best competition..
The Four Nations was really important to our players and you could see how much it meant to them” ~ Gary Bettman #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/biQljkxFjo
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) July 1, 2025
That passion showed. In a sport sometimes criticized for being too polished and too structured, the Four Nations Face-Off was raw. Real. From the viral anthem-fight moment to the heartbreak of OT losses, it reminded fans what the All-Star Game no longer could: that hockey is built on emotion and identity. “It was something that was really important to our players, which is why, when you saw the event, you could see that they were all in—which is why, I guess, it drew such positive comparison to All-Star Games in some of the other sports,” Bettman said.
“This meant a lot to the players to represent their countries, and they showed it in the way the competition played out. And they showed it even after Four Nations was over, based on the number of players that came back to their NHL teams injured,” Gary Bettman said. Fans got it. The ratings proved it. And players embraced it fully. With NHL players set to return to the Olympics in 2026 and a new World Cup of Hockey in 2028, the Four Nations was more than a one-off; it was a launchpad for the league’s global future.
Whether the All-Star Game ever returns remains uncertain. But after what happened in Montreal and Boston, it might not be missed. As Bettman put it, this was about giving the game back to its roots. And judging by the response, from locker rooms to living rooms, it may have been one of the best decisions the NHL has made in years. And in doing so, Bettman didn’t just win over hockey fans, he outshined NBA commissioner Adam Silver on one of basketball’s biggest weekends. How?
How Gary Bettman beat Adam Silver at his own game?
Well, in February, Team USA vs. Team Canada at the NHL’s new 4 Nations Face-Off didn’t just deliver, it dominated, crushing NBA All-Star in both viewership and buzz. The game drew 4.4 million average viewers and peaked at 5.2 million on ABC, making it the most-watched non-Stanley Cup Final NHL broadcast since 2019. Social media lit up with reactions, and the roar inside Montréal’s Bell Centre echoed the hype. And it didn’t stop there, the tournament’s championship game later in Boston broke more records, pulling in 9.3 million average viewers and peaking at 10.4 million on ESPN. It became the biggest NHL audience ever on ESPN, including regular season, playoffs, or any non-NFL programming.
While Mac McClung won his third straight Slam Dunk Contest and some clips went viral, the NBA All-Star events failed to pull focus. The NBA All-Star night averaged only 3.39 million viewers, its lowest since 2000 and the next day All-Star Game fared only slightly better at 4.72 million, down 13% from the previous year. Even die-hard basketball fans admitted online that the difference in intensity and excitement was glaring. It was hockey, not basketball that had the global conversation. The 4 Nations Face-Off tournament showed what fans crave: real, competitive action, not just flashy exhibitions.
The bigger story was the symbolic win for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman over NBA’s Adam Silver. Bettman’s decision to replace the traditional NHL All-Star Game with this high-stakes international event paid off in a huge way. Silver, who has publicly admitted the NBA’s All-Star Weekend has grown stale, now has to reckon with being outperformed on his own turf. As Adam said, “It presents an enormous opportunity for us to do something with an international competition instead of the traditional All‑Star formats that we’ve used.” Hockey didn’t just show up this year, it took over. In doing so, it exposed the NBA’s struggle to keep its midseason showcase relevant, and proved that meaningful competition especially when it taps into national pride, can still steal the spotlight.
The post Beating Adam Silver, NHL Commissioner Sends Strong Message to America on Four Nations appeared first on EssentiallySports.
