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.
In line with Entrance Workplace Sports activities, 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 sort out soccer Professional Bowl sport in 2022.
The league adopted a flag soccer sport as the primary occasion of Professional Bowl weekend in 2023, and viewership developments counsel the general public is not receptive to the change.
Nevertheless, as an alternative 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, Professional Soccer Speak’s Mike Florio wrote that commissioner Roger Goodell’s Monday declare of the NFL “contemplating” launching knowledgeable flag soccer league was an “understatement,” in accordance 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 probably take into account modifications to the Professional Bowl to drive pleasure, nevertheless it should not waste its power. Give it up. What number of extra hundreds of thousands of viewers should the occasion shed for the league to comprehend nobody is ?