4 Nations lit the lamp for NHL, but could it work in the NBA or MLB?

The NHL scored big by going global to fight midseason doldrums, leaving North America's other major pro sports leagues to ponder what they could do to re-energize their dreary all-star breaks.

The NHL scored big by going global to fight midseason doldrums, leaving North America's other major pro sports leagues to ponder what they could do to re-energize their dreary all-star breaks.

Hockey's top league spent its February All-Star break staging the 4 Nations Face-off, a seven-game competition featuring national teams of the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland that was a wild success for hockey die-hards and new followers of the sport.

Canada won the tournament with a thrilling overtime victory over the United States in a championship matchup that was watched by 16.1 million viewers in North America — 9.3 million in the United States and 6.3 million in Canada.

That made for the second-most watched hockey game in the past decade, trailing only Game 7 of last year's Stanley Cup Final.

"It was just the best example of pent-up demand for some great international play on the big stage with the big guns," said Lauren Anderson, director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business.

https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/sports/4-nations-lit-lamp-nhl-work-nba-mlb-rcna193638

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