NFL Moved the Pro Bowl From Paradise: What Were You Thinking?

The National Football League in its infinite wisdom decided to make a change regarding where and when the annual Pro Bowl All-Star game would be played.  Looking back at last year and the prospects of this year’s 2011 contest, you have to wonder just what the motivation was behind such a change. 

 “It’s not a new notion to have the game moved up to take place between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. The NFL has discussed it multiple times in recent years,” according to Roger Goodell in a statement to the Associated Press last month. 

He further remarked that having the game precede the Super Bowl would avoid a “somewhat anticlimactic” ending to the season.

Shortly after Goodell made the call to move the 2010 Pro Bowl to Miami, it was immediately frowned upon by coaches and players.  Peyton Manning was quoted as saying, “If the tradition continues, eventually the game will be held in cities that are not desirable vacation destinations.”

Others have espoused that the idea to experiment with the Pro Bowl schedule and location was discussed over the past two years with NFL owners, the NFLPA, the NFL Player Advisory Council and others and received wide player and club support.

“Moving the Pro Bowl to the Sunday prior to the Super Bowl can add even more excitement to Super Bowl week, one of the most anticipated weeks of the year,” according to Frank Supovitz, the NFL’s senior vice president of events. “Taking the Pro Bowl to new locations can showcase our top players to more fans around the country.”  

Now the Pro Bowl is returning to Hawaii and many players have voiced complaints believing it never should have left.

In direct opposition to the statement that players supported experimentation with the move, many voiced the concern about holding the contest in a city they visit during the regular season, that being Miami last year.  The game was located there and was scheduled before the Super Bowl in an experiment to draw more media attention and television viewers.  With the new scheduling you didn’t get the opportunity see the Pro Bowl selectees that were due to play in the Super Bowl, play in the Pro Bowl at all. 

The NFL claims that TV ratings were up for last year’s contest on ESPN. It was watched by an average of 12.3 million viewers, the most since 2000. That’s up 40 percent from the 2009 Pro Bowl in Honolulu on NBC, which drew 8.8 million viewers when the event was held after the Super Bowl. 

It is still speculation if relocating the game had anything to do with it.  It certainly saved ESPN a lot of money by not having to transport and set up all that equipment twice.  

Hawaii, which started staging the game in 1980, is paying $4 million per game to hold the Pro Bowl this year and 2012. The site past those dates hasn’t been determined. 

Although the game has returned, the NFL is standing pat with its decision to keep the Pro Bowl ahead of the Super Bowl.  So far the decision has only served to bury any Pro Bowl media coverage of any significance.  The Super Bowl casts a long shadow.

The change means the Pro Bowl will not feature any Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers on the field or the sidelines. They are preparing for the Feb. 6 Super Bowl in Arlington, Tex. There are 10 Pro Bowl selections in the Super Bowl, six of them Packers.

Last year, Pro Bowlers in the Super Bowl were introduced at the stadium but didn’t play. This year, they might as well be halfway around the world, but the NFL clearly views this in a positive light.

“Our fans have clearly responded to the change in the format,” said Ray Anderson, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. “We think it’s great for the NFL. We think it’s great for the state of Hawaii.  We had 12.3 million viewers in 2010, (but) we certainly expect to surpass that this year back in beautiful Hawaii.”

Only days away from the game there still appears to be a lot of tickets available, and the sellout needed is a light at the end of a pretty distant tunnel.  Surely this will do wonders for television’s ratings and ad revenue. 

NFL owners and players alike are well aware that Hawaii is more than a place to have an all-star game.  The whole concept that Hawaii has been part of developing over the past 30 years is that the Pro Bowl being played here, following the Championship game, was a reward in it’s own way for those who excelled in the game regardless of whether they made it to the final championship contest or not. 

They were able to enjoy all that Hawaii has to offer without being rushed off.  Super Bowl players won’t have the opportunity at all anymore.  NFL owners remained after the Pro Bowl in earlier years and hopped over to Maui for owners meetings since next up was next season.

This also comes at a time when the teams will have Japanese coaches as the NFL and Hawaii attempt to expand the game’s appeal.  Two university coaches will be part of one coaching staff and on the sidelines for the other in Sunday’s event.  Football is played at a few colleges in Japan, but it doesn’t have the fan interest that baseball, soccer, or native sport sumo have.

Let’s face facts.  When it comes to nuts and bolts, the NFL should seriously reconsider holding the Pro Bowl before the Super Bowl and the wisdom of having it anywhere else than beautiful islands of Hawaii.  Nothing will eclipse the Super Bowl viewing or detract from it by having the Pro Bowl the following week, but the reverse cannot be claimed.  The problems that this causes for both the NFL and Hawaii, not to mention future possible host sites, far outweigh any short-term gain.