Can the NFL take a touch? After the dismal rankings for Sunday’s Professional Bowl Video games have 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 % lower from 2024 when 5.8 million viewers watched.
FOS additionally famous the Professional Bowl has misplaced two million viewers within the three years for the reason that final deal with soccer Professional Bowl recreation in 2022.
The league adopted a flag soccer recreation as the primary occasion of Professional Bowl weekend in 2023, and viewership developments recommend the general public is not receptive to the change.
Nonetheless, as an alternative of reverting again to full pads, the league can 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 knowledgeable flag soccer league was an “understatement,” in keeping with a league supply.
Whereas a aggressive flag soccer league would possibly work (we’ve got our doubts), the model trotted out on the Professional Bowl will not 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 seemingly contemplate modifications to the Professional Bowl to drive pleasure, but it surely should not waste its power. Give it up. What number of extra thousands and thousands of viewers should the occasion shed for the league to understand nobody is ?
