The Cable Guys: ESPN, Not CBS, To Televise 2010 Pro Bowl From Miami

ESPN will televise the '10 Pro Bowl, “taking the game that was expected to be on CBS and returning it to cable for the first time” since ’06, according to Paul Gough of the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The move comes as the ’10 game shifts to Sunday, January 31, a week before the Super Bowl is played the following Sunday at Dolphin Stadium. The announcement “breaks recent practice, where for the past three years the broadcast network that carries the Super Bowl would also carry the much-lower-rated Pro Bowl.” CBS will carry the '10 Super Bowl, and Gough wrote, “It wasn't clear why CBS declined to televise the Pro Bowl, though under the terms of the 2006 right agreements the NFL has the right to shop the Pro Bowl rights for a particular year if that network doesn't want them. That's apparently what happened here.” Terms of the NFL-ESPN deal were not disclosed, but it is believed to be a one-year deal. Fox is scheduled to carry the ‘11 Pro Bowl, along with Super Bowl XLV. ESPN had broadcast the Pro Bowl “for two stretches,” between ‘88-94 and ‘04-06 (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 12/31).