Chances are, you’ve probably heard some chatter about the NBA’s annual All-Star Weekend festivities coming to San Francisco this year. It’s happening on Valentine’s Day weekend (Feb 14-16, for all the lovers out there) at Chase Center, and it comes chock full of surrounding programming besides just the dunk contest, three-point shootout and the All-Star game itself.
At the Moscone Center, the “NBA Crossover” event is going down for three days and dubs itself as the “ultimate NBA fan experience.” For $50 ($25 for kids) people can pull up and meet some hoopsters, shoot baskets, and experience a series of #UniqueActivations. There’s more at other venues, but at Pier 48, adjacent to Oracle Park at China Basin, there’s our topic du jour: The NBA’s “All-Star Concerts,” a series of bland, uninspired, shows that are come across as powered by some super algorithm and don’t feel like anything that aligns with a basketball audience—let alone a Bay Area one—at all.
Friday features two concerts, one from German EDM pop DJ Zedd, and the other from rapper Flo Rida, who dropped a December EP called Christmas In Cabo, but whose last LP came out 10 years ago, and has managed to maintain a steady career of feature appearances off the strength of a now-cringey single from 2007. On Saturday, we get singer-songwriter and streaming darling Noah Kahan, who’s from Vermont, is talented, and not right for this at all. There’s hardly a connection between his music and basketball, and I can assure you that no NBA team has pregame layup lines with “Stick Season” playing over the arena speakers. Finally on Sunday, we get the bubblegum bad boyz of EDM, the Chainsmokers, who have been a punchline to a bro joke almost as many times as their ten billion Spotify streams.
All of this begs the question: Who the heck booked this? And if not for an NBA fan base, then who are these concerts intended for? By all accounts, it wasn’t any of the big promoters with a local presence in the Bay Area—which might explain why this slate of acts feels so questionable. For NBA all-star weekend? In the Bay Area? And this is what you came up with? The Warriors seem to have a decent idea of what Bay Area culture is all about. Did they get to weigh-in, or are they just along for the spoils that come with hosting the weekend? Where is the hip-hop that the enormous fanbase of young NBA fans rides so hard for and has become wonderfully congruent with the style and swagger of the league?
For context, Flo Rida’s other upcoming Bay Area appearance is booked at Rohnert Park’s Graton Casino in March [insert ‘How do you do, fellow kids?’ meme here.] This looks more like the contestants on a Wednesday night of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. This looks more like the playlist of a shuttered Abercrombie & Fitch. This looks more like the lineup of the next Fyre Fest. (Speaking of which, you can buy a festival-ish 3-day pass to these concerts for $400 or $650 for VIP, which doesn’t include seating).
I’m not sure what any of these acts have to do with basketball, let alone with the Bay Area, and it all comes across as pretty disconnected. What’s next, John Fisher introducing the acts before they go on stage?
There’s just something about the Chainsmokers and Zedd, too, that doesn’t particularly resonate with NBA culture. This reads like the league asked Kristpas Porzingis for his opinion and nobody else. Are Euro clubrats and out-of-town tech Dads really the target audience? There’s barely a finger on the pulse here and there is no semblance of the massively influential local scene reflected in these music bookings either. And where are the female acts?! This is 2025, I thought we were past the dude parade?
I understand that these names might seem to be of higher international caliber than some artists from the Bay Area, but give me one of those three days with E-40 on stage. Give me Kehlani. Give me Fil-Am superstar and Warriors lucky charm P-Lo. Give me H.E.R. Give me Larry June!
Too bad the NBA already used their G-Eazy card at All-Star weekend 2023 in Salt Lake City; it felt out of place then, but would’ve surely been better served in the Bay. The NBA has no shortage of players routinely pushing their chips towards their rap careers, and yet this programming is completely devoid of anything remotely resembling relevant hip-hop. How perfectly timed would a performance from LiAngelo “Gelo” Ball (and his viral locker room anthem “Tweaker”) have been here? If there’s a marketing sponsor throwing a VIP All-Star Weekend party at a local venue looking for last minute ideas, kindly feel free to snag that idea.
Meanwhile, the NFL has committed to marquee hip-hop acts for the last three Super Bowls. The league has scored major high marks across the board for this year’s upcoming performance starring 2024’s five-time Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar and the newly announced addition of SZA. It sounds like the NBA could use another voice in the room in these affairs.
Ultimately, I want the NBA All-Star Weekend in San Francisco. Yes, it’s a glorious media circus. Yes, it’s extra AF. But it’s a lot of fun and gets a lot of eyeballs on the city. Considering all the unnecessarily negative takes surrounding SF as of late, NBA All-Star Weekend as a whole is a perfect opportunity to welcome visitors; it’s good here! But I’d also hope that the millions of people on the ground and on TV get to see a slice of the vibrant music culture that sets this league and this region apart, rather than just a cash grab that completely ignores its influence. This is ain’t it.
