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Virtual Pro Bowl could prove good catch for NFL

Last year’s edition, won 38-33 by Courtland Sutton and the AFC, drew almost 8 million viewers on ESPN and ABC.getty images

The pandemic forced the NFL last month to cancel the Pro Bowl, but an all-virtual equivalent centered around EA Sports’ Madden video game franchise opens the door to experiments and innovations that may prove to last, league executives say.

 

To be clear, the NFL would prefer a live game and a concurrent festival in Las Vegas as originally planned. For all the derision aimed at the Pro Bowl for its frequent player opt-outs and its inauthentic style of play, it still generates television viewership and event revenue that won’t be matched online.

But in terms of the league’s primary business goals with the Pro Bowl — celebrating elite players; facilitating a gathering of stars across the league; promoting their personalities under a “helmets off” approach to marketing; and connecting with young fans all while minimizing injury risk — an all-virtual Pro Bowl isn’t as big a loss as it might seem.

NFL Executive Vice President Peter O’Reilly compared the pandemic-era Pro Bowl to April’s NFL draft, which went all-remote as an emergency response to bans on large gatherings, but ended up drawing rave reviews with new wrinkles that will become a permanent part of the show.

“There may be things we’ll learn as we work through the next couple of months that could and should live on, and that will be interesting,” O’Reilly said.

Details are still being developed along with Madden publisher EA Sports, a longtime exclusive realistic-action licensee of the NFL and the NFLPA. But the general outline is taking shape: A week of matchups involving celebrities and current players at the controls, manning all-star rosters in the game, with the highest-profile players playing as themselves and their conference. The league will also seek to elevate the Pro Bowl selection process into featured programming.

“We’re looking at the value we’re delivering around the Pro Bowl, as not just on game day necessarily, but throughout this whole stretch,” O’Reilly said. He said fan voting is up five times year-over-year.

The main broadcast (set for Jan. 31 on ESPN and ABC unless the pandemic forces real games to be rescheduled) will be a produced feature weaving together footage of the video game contests and other parts of the Pro Bowl experience, O’Reilly said.

Distribution of the full video game competition is still being decided, but it won’t be part of the main network broadcast.

Ratings for esports on linear TV have generally underwhelmed the sports industry, but NASCAR developed a hit with its pandemic iRacing series last summer, which averaged near 1 million viewers.

The NFL is also considering a virtual skills competition that might borrow from the music industry’s “VerzuzTV,” an Instagram account that hosts so-called “battles” between artists, O’Reilly said. On the account, created earlier this year, artists go head-to-head with dueling performances, while other celebrities and fans argue over who did it better in the comments.

Executives believe that kind of social media show, properly promoted by the NFL, the players, their teams and sponsors, such as Pro Bowl presenting sponsor Verizon, could yield extraordinary reach and engagement.

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