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Pro Bowl Says Aloha to Hawai'i

I guess you really can have too much of paradise. The NFL is moving the Pro Bowl to Miami after holding the game in Hawai'i every year since 1980. The game has traditionally been held the week following the Super Bowl but will be moved up to the week before, falling on the Sunday between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl. In 2010, both games will be held in Dolphins Stadium and the Pro Bowl will likely rotate in the future, with a strong possibility that it will return to Hawai'i in alternate years.

This will likely turn out to be a good move as the game is now an afterthought for everyone but the players that play in it. For them, it is a nice end of season trip to Hawai'i for their families and playing in a game that no one cares about or many watch. By moving it into the dead week before the Super Bowl, the NFL fills in that week, helps create more excitement in the host city about the Super Bowl, if that's possible, and create more of a week-plus long celebration of the league as it counts down to the Big Game (oops, sorry Cal & Stanford, I forgot your copyright). "Moving the Pro Bowl to the Sunday prior to the Super Bowl can add even more excitement to Super Bowl week, one of the most anticipated weeks of the year," said Frank Supovitz, the NFL?s senior vice president of events.

I have never really understood the reason for the extra week off anyway. I guess the downside is for those players on the Super Bowl teams elected to the Pro Bowl, they won't be able to participate but most of them don't go anyway. They're generally too exhausted or banged up after the Super Bowl to play in the Pro Bowl as it is.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on December 30, 2008 (boomark / email).