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The NFL Pro Bowl is an annual exhibition game that occurs towards the end of each season. It features the AFC and NFC conference's best players facing off against each other and currently takes place during the week off of the NFL playoffs that fall between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.
It was recently announced that the NFL would be getting rid of the classic version of the Pro Bowl each year, effective for the 2023 NFL season. This means that this year will feature the final showdown in the format that NFL fans are most used to. Starting next season, the traditional game will be replaced by a flag football game and a mix of different skills competitions for all players attending.
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While getting rid of the Pro Bowl may sound like an extreme move at first that could possibly enrage the NFL fan base, it's unlikely that would really be the actual response.
Many NFL fans disliked the current version of the Pro Bowl anyway or were simply uninterested in its existence. So maybe the new version will draw more attention.
Here are three reasons why many fans disapproved of the Pro Bowl.
#1 - Many NFL superstars skip the Pro Bowl
The concept of the Pro Bowl is supposed to be that the best players in each conference during a particular season will form all-star teams and face off against each other. It sounds great in theory, but it's not the reality of what happens.
Many top players chose to sit out the game anyway, and with the Super Bowl the following week, the players on teams fighting for a ring are automatically excluded from the Pro Bowl.
#2 - Exhibition games struggle to attract an audience
The Pro Bowl experiences some of the same viewership issues as the NFL Preseason. NFL games attract massive audiences and enormous television ratings, but exhibition formats only command a small fraction of those numbers.
It has been proven that most fans could care less about games that have no real impact on the outcome of the regular season.
#3 - The rules of the game don't match real NFL games
The product on the field produced by the Pro Bowl is not the same as a game that counts towards a team's record. The rulebook is severely modified, primarily for player safety, including rules limiting contact, prohibiting blitzing, and excluding other things that many fans consider to make football exciting in the first place.
