Can the NFL take a touch? After the dismal scores for Sunday’s Professional Bowl Video games had been revealed, followers have spoken. The exhibition has run its course.
According to Front Office Sports, 4.7 million viewers tuned into the 2025 Professional Bowl Video games, an 18 p.c lower from 2024 when 5.8 million viewers watched.
FOS additionally famous the Professional Bowl has misplaced two million viewers within the three years because the final sort out soccer Professional Bowl recreation in 2022.
The league adopted a flag soccer recreation as the principle occasion of Professional Bowl weekend in 2023, and viewership developments recommend the general public is not receptive to the change.
Nevertheless, as a substitute of reverting again to full pads, the league could be higher off scrapping the occasion in its entirety. FOS notes that the league is utilizing the format to generate curiosity in flag soccer’s pending debut within the 2028 L.A. Olympics, in order that seems unlikely.
On Tuesday, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio wrote that commissioner Roger Goodell’s Monday declare of the NFL “contemplating” launching an expert flag soccer league was an “understatement,” in line with a league supply.
Whereas a aggressive flag soccer league may work (we now have our doubts), the model trotted out on the Professional Bowl shouldn’t be.
With a number of projected starters opting out yearly, plus the Tremendous Bowl groups missing illustration, it is hardly a real celebration of the league’s greatest gamers.
The NFL will possible contemplate modifications to the Professional Bowl to drive pleasure, however it should not waste its vitality. Give it up. What number of extra hundreds of thousands of viewers should the occasion shed for the league to comprehend nobody is ?
