Yet another shakeup could be in store for the NFL’s annual All-Star game.
Pete Dougherty of the Green Bay Post-Gazette, citing a league source, reported Tuesday that the NFL is “seriously considering” moving the Pro Bowl from Hawaii to Glendale, Ariz. — home of Super Bowl XLIX — next season as a way of “raising the revenue and profile of the game.”
NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport confirmed Dougherty’s report, saying he is being told discussions about moving the game are “active and serious.” Rapoport called the prospect of a Pro Bowl in Arizona “very possible.”
The NFL tinkers with the Pro Bowl — the highest-rated but most criticized of the four All-Star games — on an almost yearly basis, with this past February’s edition doing away with the traditional AFC vs. NFC setup in lieu of a new “fantasy draft” format. The 2009 Pro Bowl held in Miami, however, marked the only time in the last 35 years a venue other than Aloha Stadium has hosted the game.
Plans to move the Pro Bowl to Arizona also could be complicated by reports that the NFL might revoke Glendale’s Super Bowl-hosting privileges if a state bill allowing businesses to refuse service to gay people based on religious beliefs is signed into law.
