In news that surely has all football fans on the edge of their seats, the NFL is making more changes to the Pro Bowl in an attempt to drive fan interest.
Moving the game to Tuesday of Super Bowl week – and in the same city as the Super Bowl
The NFL announced that the Pro Bowl is moving to the week leading up to the Super Bowl.
Historically, the event has been held the weekend before the big game, and almost always in a different city than the Super Bowl was being played. For much of its history, that location was Honolulu at what was formerly Aloha Stadium. Why was it put in such a remote place? Because the focus was on giving the players a reason to play in it – like an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii for them and their families.
But over the last 15 years, the game has struggled to capture the attention of fans. Players didn’t want to risk injury, so despite everyone wearing full pads, the game started to resemble something more like a flag football event (and a boring one, at that).
In 2015, the NFL moved the game to Phoenix, which was also the site of that year’s Super Bowl. But still, the difference in enthusiasm was negligible. Television ratings continued to fall, and the event continued to be seen as a dud.
The game returned to Honolulu in 2016, but in the eight years since, it has been played six times in Orlando at Camping World Stadium, and twice in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium.
But now the game will shift to the same city where the Super Bowl is being played. Although Levi’s Stadium is in Santa Clara, the Pro Bowl will take place at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, which is about 45 miles north of the stadium.
Changing the format
Determined to breathe new life into the event, the NFL changed the format in 2023, replacing the “full-contact” football game with a 7-on-7 flag football contest, along with multiple days of skills competitions. And to be sure, that has made the event more compelling, as players can compete more aggressively without incurring a significant injury risk.
The new events have included a wide variety of competitions, some football-related, and others not. A quarterback accuracy challenge harkened back to the NFL Quarterback Challenge of the 1990s, where QBs would compete in distance and accuracy challenges (be sure to check out the amazing Zubaz that all of the players were wearing back then). Other events, such as dodgeball, took a more sports reality-TV approach to the event.
As of now, it’s just the flag football game that has been announced. We’ll see if there are more events scheduled to accompany it during the week, but we would expect so.
How does this affect fan attendance?
Well, for the 7-on-7 flag football event (and anything else that is scheduled), it could easily become a hot ticket. Why? Because instead of being played in a 60,000-capacity football stadium, it will now be in a 4,000-person convention center. Even though it will be on a Tuesday night, it’s hard to imagine how it won’t completely sell out. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if a sizable percentage of the tickets were held back for corporate sponsors and other VIPs, given the event’s exclusivity.
So, in regard to the in-venue attendance, this will definitely create more demand – not to mention a better look on TV.
How will this affect television ratings?
Well, this is the big question. The revenue from ticket sales isn’t what the league is worried about – they want eyeballs on the game that will help drive advertising dollars. Will moving the event to Tuesday night help that? They’ll have a full slate of seven NHL and 10 NBA games to compete against, and that will include a Warriors game just down the street at the Chase Center. So we’ll see just how much of a rebound the Pro Bowl can make.
So how can you get tickets to the game?
As of today, no details have been released regarding how to purchase tickets to the game. In previous years, it seems like they couldn’t give tickets away. Every NFL team would send presale offers to their season ticket holders, and a full onsale – with plenty of available tickets – always followed for the general public.
But with the small capacity venue, this event will likely be handled differently. And, if we had to guess, there may not even be an open sale to the public. But stay tuned and we’ll let you know when details are announced.
