As the Packers and the Steelers await their showdown in Dallas, football fans are left with what has become the least impressive of all the professional All-Star games, the Pro Bowl.
Since its creation, the Pro Bowl has been more about an end-of-season Hawaiian vacation for the players than the spectacle for fans that we have come to expect from NBA All-Star Weekend or MLB All-Star festivities. This is due, in large part, to the brutal nature of a 16 game (perhaps more) NFL season, where you are not going to see NFL players going all-out on each other in a meaningless game.
In the NBA, in a game devoid of defense, the All-Star Game becomes a glorified shoot-around/dunk contest, which still makes for good television. The MLB All-Star game is business as usual, because baseball inherently isn't a rough sport. In a 162-game season, one extra exhibition doesn't make much of a difference.
The Pro Bowl, on the other hand, is a game more about avoiding long term injury than playing a football game. It traditionally got low ratings, coming the week after the Super Bowl, a time when most fans had tuned out the NFL and moved on to anticipate the start of the MLB season, the NBA, and NCAA basketball.
So, in a move to boost ratings and advertising income last year, the NFL moved the game to the traditional empty weekend before the Super Bowl. Though many saw it as a clear sell-out to advertisers, the NFL got results. Rating exploded, outpacing viewership by 40% over the year previous, according to the LA Times.
Say what you'd like, the move worked and the NFL is reaping the benefits. But, it brings the dawn of a reality that fans must come to terms with: sports is entirely about money. For the same reason the Pro Bowl was moved to its current day, the MLB All-Star Game now determines home-field in the World Series, and Terrell Pryor and four other teammates were allowed to play in their team's bowl game after being suspended.
Just like every other industry in the capitalist-driven United States, sports is an entertainment business that needs cash flow to function. It is maximizing the cash flow, the same way a restaurant or tech company may, for example.
It is not that I am pointing out a novel idea. The NFL has never been some "purely-about-preserving-the-game-of-football" league, and it would be foolish to ever think it was. What I am pointing out is that fans need to be cognizant of it. All of the PR that goes into the move should not cloud the fan's vision of the true motive of the move. It is not, "trying to keep the integrity of the game". It is about one thing: the almighty dollar.
