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On the final day of this month, the NFL Pro Bowl will take place in Sun Life Stadium in Miami, exactly one week before the Super Bowl. It is the first time in the history of the League the Pro Bowl will be played before the championship game, and is also the first time the game has been played outside of Hawaii since 1979.
The change in game-time is an attempt by Commissioner Roger Goodell to strengthen the game, a typically unpopular and rarely watched event. The usual week-after-the-Super-Bowl date would have pitted the game against the NBA All-Star game, the Daytona 500, and the Winter Olympics.
While its current January 31st air-date does conflict with the 52nd Grammy Awards, the assumed target audiences aren’t likely to overlap to the same degree as the three major sports events in February would.
Regardless of the potential broadcasting conflicts, it is fairly obvious to all followers of the NFL that the true intention of the switch is to generate more fan interest in the least popular of sports all-star games.
The thing about all-star games is this; they’re stupid.
They’re worthless, meaningless displays of star-power void of any effort, rarely memorable, and heavily influenced by foolish fan voting.
The Pro Bowl, meanwhile, is the poorest of them all. It is the only major sport all-star game that takes place at the end of the season, rather than in the middle. It occurs at a time when the average fan has already mentally checked-out of football season, perhaps not even thinking about their team until, at the earliest, the NFL Draft in April.
So, in an attempt to peak interest (and simultaneously make more dollars) the NFL has moved its laughing stock of an all-star game to the week before the Super Bowl, hoping that since the season hasn’t officially ended yet, the fans will for some reason give a damn.
Commissioner Roger Goodell is making the incorrect assumption that since the game now takes place BEFORE the season concludes, fan interest will suddenly skyrocket. He believes the Pro Bowls lack of popularity can be changed simply by a week.
Forget for a second that the change in game-time prevents any pro-bowler from the Super Bowl teams to participate in the match. Forget that 14 pro-bowl worthy players are unable to accept the “honor” because their team is still alive. Forget that the Conference Championship losing coachs are also being restricted from accepting the privilege usually bestowed upon them.
Forget about the players. Forget about the coaches. Think about the fans.
For the fans of 30 teams, the 2009 season is over. Hopes, dreams, and optimism have all gone away. Even the fans of teams who took positive steps towards improvement this year are bitten by the reality that their beloved franchises won’t suit-up for anything meaningful till the start of September.
And yet here they are, all of our teams best players, running around, making big plays, laughing, smiling, joking around with each other, having a ball. It’s devastating to watch.
The Pro Bowl will never be popular as long as it takes place after teams have been eliminated. Once their season is over, fans want to believe their players are off in isolation, tormented by their inability to win a Super bowl, quietly strengthening themselves constantly on the road to success the following season. We don’t want to see them on vacation.
The Pro Bowl is a vacation for the players.
The only way to lift fan interest in the game would be to move it to the middle of the season. Eliminate the bye week, give every team the week off, and have the Pro-Bowlers meet at an annual location, the same way hockey, baseball, and basketball all do.
Of course, this would never happen. You think teams would risk their best players in the middle of the season to play a meaningless game? It is an impossible scenario, an idea where the cons greatly outweigh the pros.
It is the reason the Pro Bowl was moved the week after the Super Bowl in the first place.
The change in game-date and location stinks of a short-term solution. Legendary broadcaster Al Michaels was quoted as saying “the (NFL) thinks playing it before the Super Bowl will add to the buzz. It won’t.” It seems more and more likely that eventually, the game will be moved back to after the Super bowl, in Hawaii where it belongs.
Not that it will matter. The Pro Bowl is what it is, a mockingly excruciating joke of a football match, and a week-difference isn’t going to change that.
Eric Marmon wrote this for SportEvents.com, which helps real NFL fans find NFL game tickets and tickets to the Super Bowl.
