Essentials Inside The Story
- The NFL announced it is canceling the Pro Bowl Games, and it makes sense.
- The exhibition event has increasingly become less fruitful while MLB continues to grow with the concept.
- The Pro Bowl Games were never supposed to be a permanent event.
Back on January 15, 1939, 20,000 of an expected 30,000 NFL fans gathered in the old Wrigley Field, LA, to watch the champions, the New York Giants, defeat an All-Star roster 13-10 to raise money for the Salvation Army. The weather wasn’t the best, but watching an additional NFL game would’ve been another thrill.
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For years, the NFL has proved that it can sell anything to anyone. Hall of Famer NFL Commissioner Bert Bell’s decision to sign off on the annual Pro Bowl Game concept in 1950 was supposed to be among them. For a long time, it worked. Until it didn’t… As Roger Goodell finally clamped down on the event for all the good reasons, Bert Bell’s son has come forward to address what that evolution meant in contrast to what his father wished for.
“My father Commissioner Bert Bell invented the Pro Bowl to get the players of the 50’s more money,” Upton wrote on X. “He did not intend it to continue after the NFL became successful. The Game went on entirely too long and became a joke of Flag Football.
“It’s called NFL Greed,” he continued in a subsequent post.
The All-Star Games, in every sports league in the nation today, have been fraught. Some stars certainly save them, but every league’s efforts to make it interesting for the viewers are going in vain, and it’s been among the worst for the NFL.
In 2023, the league rebranded its Pro Bowl Game into a flag football event from the ‘Tackle’ Pro Bowl. 6.7 million viewers tuned in, but the very next year, the numbers dropped to 5.75 million. It only got worse, as only 1.9 million viewers watched the Pro Bowl Games this year. The lack of curiosity has many reasons, the very factors that pushed the league to scrap the Game completely.
“I think we’ve been focused on the game. You’ve heard me say it for many years about the quality of the game in the Pro Bowl. I don’t think it’s up to NFL standards,” Goodell said in a statement. “And that’s why we changed to the flag game several years ago. So I’m not sure the last time you want to say we played a game in a football sense.”
For starters, the Game was supposed to highlight the most outstanding players in the NFL. Recently, it has turned into more of an ‘Alternate Arena’.
The NFL’s decision to end the Pro Bowl is a good riddance
The Pro Bowlers originally chosen either don’t attend the event due to scheduling issues, as the Game is hosted in Super Bowl week, or injuries keep them away. Just take the Shedeur Sanders blunder this year.
Since the New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye was bound to play in the Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks, he did not agree to the invite. As such, Sanders, the worst starting QB of the year, was selected to substitute for him. But this won’t be the only factor.
When you look at the pros and cons, the latter clearly outweighs the other for everyone involved.
The players certainly don’t see that the honor of being called a Pro Bowler necessarily requires them to risk their bodies in an inconsequential game. Tom Brady is the only football player who got the honor 15 times. He played in one. Josh Allen missed the 2023 event. Over time, the concept that this was supposed to be an engaging game got lost somewhere until it was hanging by a thread.
Other leagues, like the NBA and MLB, being less physical, still give the same excitement that any heated clash would bring. MLB, for instance, continues to grow that number.
A little over seven million viewers tuned in to watch their All-Star Game in 2023. It grew to 7.44 million in 2024, 7.19 million in 2025, and then to a whopping 8.79 million viewers in 2025 and 2026, respectively. One can say it’s MLB’s revenge on the NFL for taking over as America’s national pastime years ago. But to the NFL, it is the rare defeat for a sports empire that is continuing to dominate the world. But that’s where Upton Bell’s concern comes in.
Bert Bell never intended the Pro Bowl Games to be a permanent tradition once the league achieved financial success. Currently, the 32 NFL teams have a combined collective worth of $299 billion, per the latest Sportico NFL Franchise Valuations. Yet, the traditions carried on year on year.
It did undergo structural/format changes. The original Pro Bowl format from 1951 was a highly competitive, full-contact tackle football game played after the season ended. In stark contrast, recent formats shifted to a non-contact, multi-day “Games” setup (2023–2026) featuring flag football and skills challenges. However, while the meaningless exhibition is put on hold, some honors remain the same.
However, moving forward, the Pro Bowl is transitioning into an individual performance award, where the league will still name 88 top players (44 from the AFC and 44 from the NFC) to the official Pro Bowl class in late December. This is not it.
To protect the integrity and prestige of the award, Goodell & Co. has banned replacement selections. Instead of playing a game, the selected 88 players will be invited to an exclusive in-person celebration in Los Angeles during February’s Super Bowl week.
Somehow, this seems like the right decision to breathe life back into one of the league’s most prestigious personal accolade that the players used to honor.