Well, I've been thinking about some ideas close to these for the All Star Game.
So far, the system already choses 4 players for each position so I think it should be possible to release this list one week earlier to allow the managers to vote for the starting five.
I like your idea of giving a weight for active players and non-active ones.
Therefore, after this vote, we will have the starting five and the substitutes for each conference.
Then, the coach. In NBA, the coach for the All-Star Game is the coach of the best team and I think that it should be the same here too. But since the roster is already chosen by the vote, he is only allowed to chose the tactics.
Of course, no home advantage for that game.
So, the managers are at least a little bit involved in the game but I'm not sure that it would be enough to make them really interested in it.
For most of the teams, the All-Star Break is a synonym of bad financial results since there is only one official game played (and for half of the teams, this is an away game without any income). So I suggest two possibilities :
- Give a little increase in the Merchandising for the teams who had a player in the victorious team (let's say 25.000$ for example, half of a qualification for the next round in the Cup)
- Give the same increase in the Merchandising of all the teams of the winning team (maybe would make more sense because, for example, if the coach managing the All Star Team doesn't have any of his own players in the roster, he will not have any real interest in winning the game, and might even try to lose it to prevent his opponents in his conference to get some money).
I think that without involving a little bit of money, it would be hard to interest the managers in this All Star Game.
Also, as you said, on the player history, it should be written when the player was selected for a All Star Game and also, if he won the 3 points contest.
For the 3 points contest, since it is 100% random (nobody chose the shooters and nobody has any influence on the results), I think there is no need to change anything, apart maybe for the use of the game viewer to see the position of the shoots.