The NFL cited a priority on player recognition in its dramatic decision to kill the Pro Bowl Games. The event’s precipitous decline on television, however, also represented a key factor in the removal of an all-star showcase with a lineage dating to 1939.
The league will no longer stage an all-star game of any kind, instead choosing to select and honor a set of 88 Pro Bowlers annually, with no alternates, as was the case for the actual game. In detailing the decision, NFL officials said they leaned heavily on player input, and a lack of interest by those players in competing in a post-playoff game
“They made that extremely clear on our calls and our discussions: ‘When our playoff run is over, our season ends. I don’t want to compete anymore,’” said NFL EVP of football operations Troy Vincent.
The other ugly truth about the Pro Bowl Games, however, is the sharp drop in viewership directly countered historic audience trends across the rest of the league, which is poised for even more growth this season. As recently as 2022, the final year the Pro Bowl was held as a traditional tackle football game, the event drew an average television audience of 6.7 million viewers—a 16-year low.
A subsequent pivot and renaming of the event to the Pro Bowl Games, and a new format based on flag football and skills competition, did not stem the bleeding—and instead accelerated the viewership decline. The 2023 Pro Bowl Games averaged 6.3 million viewers, and that figure then fell to 5.8 million in 2024, 4.7 million last year, and then a startlingly low 2 million this year. That represents a 57% drop in average viewership in just one year, and a 70% retreat over four years.
