Pro Bowl Looking for Relevance on the Mainland
Try as it may, the NFL can’t get anyone to care about the Pro Bowl. It’s run contests to send fans to the post-season game in Hawaii, its tried to sell replicas of the funkadelic game jerseys, it’s even tried to refer to it as the NFL all-star game.
Now the NFL reportedly thinks bringing the Pro Bowl back to the mainland for the first time since 1979 is the remedy. But even that alleged plan has its cons, both on the game itself and on tourism.
The first is the alleged $30.5 million hit Hawaii will take in tourism. Bad for a state that relied on tourism as one of its biggest sources of income.
There there’s the game itself. It would be moved to the Sunday before the Super Bowl, played at the same site as the Super Bowl, and exclude players from the Super Bowl opponents. If they did this last year, when the Super Bowl XVII champion New York Giants had just one representative in the game, you wouldn’t have had a big conflict. But usually each Super Bowl team has five or six players named to the team.
Playing the game a week before the Super Bowl does fill that empty week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. But how many all-stars would still consider skipping the game to allegedly nurse injuries instead? And how quickly can you get players to commit to replace players who will instead play in The Big Game?
Maybe this is good for, say, Miami Dolphins fans. The game is in their stadium, give them first crack at tickets. See if the locals will embrace players from their rival teams like the New York Jets and New England Patriots.
But all-star games and football just don’t seem to mix. Maybe the league can do a skills competition instead, the day before the Super Bowl. Or move the game to Super Bowl Saturday and give the tickets away to local charities.
But making the Pro Bowl relevant just isn’t going to happen.
