The Pro Bowl will be played one week before the Super Bowl in 2010 and both games will be staged in Dolphin Stadium. The Pro Bowl will be televised on ESPN at 8 p.m. ET on Jan. 31, 2010.
"We are looking at alternatives to strengthen the Pro Bowl," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement Tuesday. "We will evaluate this concept after the 2010 Pro Bowl."
It's not a new notion to have the game moved up to take place between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. The NFL has discussed it multiple times in recent years, and Goodell told The Associated Press last month that having the game precede the Super Bowl would avoid a "somewhat anticlimactic" ending to the season.
"ESPN presents year-round coverage of the NFL and will work together with the league to promote the 2010 Pro Bowl as one of the kickoff events to Super Bowl XLIV week in South Florida," John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president, program acquisitions and strategy, said in a statement Tuesday.
The Pro Bowl has been held in Honolulu since 1980, and it's probable that the game will return to Hawaii after 2010, although not on the permanent basis as has been the case over the past three decades. Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle said she was hopeful a deal could be struck in time for the 2011 game to return to Honolulu, and the city's mayor, Mufi Hannemann, told The Associated Press that he also is optimistic for eventual Pro Bowls.
"It's not that this comes as a surprise," Hannemann said. "The NFL has made it known for some time now that they were looking for some sort of rotational basis. We just need to get a new agreement with the NFL, whether it's every year or every two years or every three years. The ball's in our court to get that done."
It won't be South Florida's first Pro Bowl: the 1975 game took place in Miami's Orange Bowl, during a period when the site rotated annually.
It is anticipated that the league's plan is for players on the AFC and NFC championship squads not to take part in the Pro Bowl.
Miami was awarded the 2010 Super Bowl three years ago, a record 10th time the game will come to the Dolphins' home city. The notion of adding the Pro Bowl to the lineup in South Florida was first discussed several months ago. It's not clear when the final decision was made to move the game.
Hawaii tourism officials have lobbied in recent months to extend the game's current contract, which expires after this season's Pro Bowl, pointing to the fact that it's been sold out every year since moving to Honolulu and generates about $30.5 million in visitor spending and tax revenues.
Earlier this year, Hawaii's state government released $11 million for lighting and roofing improvements at Aloha Stadium, part of ongoing upgrades designed to refurbish and modernize the aging stadium. State officials have also considered demolishing the facility and building a new stadium.
Losing the Pro Bowl, combined with slowdowns in tourism because of the sluggish economy, is a double-dose of bad news for Honolulu, which estimates that 25,000 people came from out-of-state for Pro Bowls.
"It's not a shock because in talking with the NFL last year and this year, you realize the potential was there that it wouldn't stay in Honolulu forever and ever," Hannemann said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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