The National Football League All-Star Game was first held in 1939. In 1951, after a nine-year absence, the game returned under a new name: the Pro Bowl. For the next 51 years, the annual game was played either the week before or the week after the Super Bowl. Then came 2023.
From 2023 to 2026, amid dwindling interest from both players and fans and concerns about potential injuries, the NFL rebranded the Pro Bowl as the Pro Bowl Games, a skills competition and flag football game.
On Wednesday, the NFL announced it is eliminating the Pro Bowl Games. So, now there is nothing.
“It’s okay to be the first league to walk away from a competitive all-star game,” ESPN reported NFL executive vice president Peter O’Reilly said.
88 players will still be named to the Pro Bowl in late December; there will just be no game or competition of any kind. Instead, players selected as Pro Bowlers will be invited to an in-person celebration in Los Angeles during the traditional Pro Bowl weekend.
“This direction came directly from our continued conversations with players and what they value most about the Pro Bowl,” NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said in a statement
Shannon Sharpe is not happy about the Pro Bowl being discontinued by the NFL
One man, who also happens to be an eight-time Pro Bowler and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Shannon Sharpe, thinks the league and, more specifically, its players should be “embarrassed” that it has come to this.
“You saw with the NBA, Adam Silver says, ‘Okay, if y’all don’t start playing we’re going to cut it out,” Sharpe said on his Nightcap podcast. “We done tried everything. It was the East vs. the West, and then we let LeBron and we let KD and we let Giannis, and we let this one, we let them select the squad, we let Steph and Bron select the squad, y’all still wouldn’t play. We tried it like this and y’all still wouldn’t play.’ Adam Silver said, ‘You’re heading for a situation where there ain’t going to be no All-Star Game. And do you want to be the one?’
“And you NFL players, that’s responsible for this, that played the last decade, you ought to be embarrassed. Because something that’s been going on before your parents were born, y’all ruined it. You ended it. Y’all did. Y’all did that. So be proud of yourself. Because that’s what you’ve done.”