Today the NFL holds the Pro Bowl, it’s annual all-star game, and I write my annual article wondering whether the game is necessary.
Over the last decade, it seems like every major professional sports league in North America has struggled with the place of its all-star game. The players haven’t seemed to care much about competing in these games. The mystique of seeing certain stars play from different markets, which helped drive interest in all-star games in the past, has disappeared with games readily accessible.
But beyond any of that, I have always thought football was uniquely poorly suited to hold an all-star game. That is because emotion is such a huge part of the sport. If you take away that emotion, you get this.
Sports leagues have tinkered with their formats in recent years. The first year in a new format usually gets the players excited and produces a strikingly competitive game.
That was the case with the NFL. Five years ago, the league named enough players to the Pro Bowl to fill two teams. Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders then held a draft to choose sides. The 2014 Pro Bowl between Team Rice and Team Sanders was noted for its high quality of play relative to other recent Pro Bowl. The excitement quickly wore off, and that format only lasted two more years.
In the past I have made a few gimmicky suggestions to make the format more fun, but I’m not sure there’s anything that can be done to make this game work.
What do you think?
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