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Pro Bowl leaving Honolulu, at least for 2010
HTA has teleconference with NFL set for Tuesday
By Paul Arnett and Dave Reardon
POSTED: 01:06 p.m. HST, Dec 29, 2008
The Pro Bowl is leaving Hawaii after February's game and will be played the week before the Super Bowl in Miami in 2010, sources close to the situation have told the Star-Bulletin.
A source said the National Football League All-Star game will return to Honolulu, as early as 2011, on a rotating basis with mainland sites, but the streak of 30 consecutive Pro Bowls at Aloha Stadium (all sellouts at the 50,000-seat facility) ends with the Feb. 8, 2009 game.
The NFL did not officially release information about the future of the Pro Bowl today, but NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy did respond to an e-mail from the Star-Bulletin.
"Plans for future Pro Bowls are not final, but we have stated publicly several times that we are giving strong consideration to moving the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl," McCarthy wrote. "We also have been exploring playing future Pro Bowls at the site of the Super Bowl as well as in Honolulu, host of the Pro Bowl since 1980."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell first broached the idea in Nov. 2007 and again here the week prior to the 2008 Pro Bowl. He told a small group of reporters here covering the exhibition that, "Having the game after the Super Bowl is somewhat anticlimactic."
The news is particularly bleak for the Honolulu Tourism Authority with the local economy having been hard hit by the drop in tourism.
But HTA interim-CEO Lloyd Unebasami said the NFL and the state may be close to a new deal for 2011 and beyond.
"About a week-and-a-half ago they told us to hang on, and we have a phone conference set for tomorrow (Tuesday)," Unebasami said today. "We're very optimistic it will be in Hawaii, but I guess not in 2010. It was an ongoing discussion, if 2010 would be here or not.
"We've exchanged proposals, we're at the stage of looking at something on copy."
Gov. Linda Lingle released a statement regarding the Pro Bowl this afternoon, including the following:
"While I am disappointed the Pro Bowl likely will not be played here in 2010, I respect the NFL's decision to play the ... game in the same city as the Super Bowl, one-week before the Super Bowl, on a one-year test basis."
The state pays the NFL around $4 million per year for hosting rights in the contract that ends with February's game. The Pro Bowl generates around $30 million in visitor spending and $3 million in state tax revenue, according to figures from the state.
Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann said the move "comes as no surprise."
"I do know that they are very interested in staying in Hawaii and looking for opportunities to come back," Hannemann said today. "I think that if it is a rotational basis, what can we count on — every third year at the end of the season? To me, the sooner they do that, the better off we'll be."
Hannemann has previously proposed preseason games be played here, but said today "it's probably too late now for 2010."
Goodell said last February that too many players were opting out of the game and that it had become irrelevant. He is hoping that playing the game the week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl will rejuvenate interest in it.
Those Pro Bowlers playing in the Super Bowl will not take part, but Goodell is counting on the star power throughout the league to offset that obvious conflict. Miami seems a perfect place to test his theory. Players and their families and friends will be attracted to that Honolulu-like atmosphere minus the long flight to the island chain.
A source also confirmed the game is headed back to ESPN where it flourished from 1988 to 1994. Television ratings were up, so much so, ABC-TV put the game back in its prime-time lineup through 2003. Under the current contract, the network hosting the Super Bowl also gets the Pro Bowl one week later. This year, it's NBC's turn to show the game.
Then-commissioner Paul Tagilabue proposed moving the Pro Bowl from Hawaii to a foreign country prior to his retirement in 2006. Japan, Australia and Europe were also considered as possible future Pro Bowl locations.
___
The Star-Bulletin's Laurie Au and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Pro Bowl is leaving Hawaii after February's game and will be played the week before the Super Bowl in Miami in 2010, sources close to the situation have told the Star-Bulletin.
A source said the National Football League All-Star game will return to Honolulu, as early as 2011, on a rotating basis with mainland sites, but the streak of 30 consecutive Pro Bowls at Aloha Stadium (all sellouts at the 50,000-seat facility) ends with the Feb. 8, 2009 game.
The NFL did not officially release information about the future of the Pro Bowl today, but NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy did respond to an e-mail from the Star-Bulletin.
"Plans for future Pro Bowls are not final, but we have stated publicly several times that we are giving strong consideration to moving the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl," McCarthy wrote. "We also have been exploring playing future Pro Bowls at the site of the Super Bowl as well as in Honolulu, host of the Pro Bowl since 1980."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell first broached the idea in Nov. 2007 and again here the week prior to the 2008 Pro Bowl. He told a small group of reporters here covering the exhibition that, "Having the game after the Super Bowl is somewhat anticlimactic."
The news is particularly bleak for the Honolulu Tourism Authority with the local economy having been hard hit by the drop in tourism.
But HTA interim-CEO Lloyd Unebasami said the NFL and the state may be close to a new deal for 2011 and beyond.
"About a week-and-a-half ago they told us to hang on, and we have a phone conference set for tomorrow (Tuesday)," Unebasami said today. "We're very optimistic it will be in Hawaii, but I guess not in 2010. It was an ongoing discussion, if 2010 would be here or not.
"We've exchanged proposals, we're at the stage of looking at something on copy."
Gov. Linda Lingle released a statement regarding the Pro Bowl this afternoon, including the following:
"While I am disappointed the Pro Bowl likely will not be played here in 2010, I respect the NFL's decision to play the ... game in the same city as the Super Bowl, one-week before the Super Bowl, on a one-year test basis."
The state pays the NFL around $4 million per year for hosting rights in the contract that ends with February's game. The Pro Bowl generates around $30 million in visitor spending and $3 million in state tax revenue, according to figures from the state.
Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann said the move "comes as no surprise."
"I do know that they are very interested in staying in Hawaii and looking for opportunities to come back," Hannemann said today. "I think that if it is a rotational basis, what can we count on — every third year at the end of the season? To me, the sooner they do that, the better off we'll be."
Hannemann has previously proposed preseason games be played here, but said today "it's probably too late now for 2010."
Goodell said last February that too many players were opting out of the game and that it had become irrelevant. He is hoping that playing the game the week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl will rejuvenate interest in it.
Those Pro Bowlers playing in the Super Bowl will not take part, but Goodell is counting on the star power throughout the league to offset that obvious conflict. Miami seems a perfect place to test his theory. Players and their families and friends will be attracted to that Honolulu-like atmosphere minus the long flight to the island chain.
A source also confirmed the game is headed back to ESPN where it flourished from 1988 to 1994. Television ratings were up, so much so, ABC-TV put the game back in its prime-time lineup through 2003. Under the current contract, the network hosting the Super Bowl also gets the Pro Bowl one week later. This year, it's NBC's turn to show the game.
Then-commissioner Paul Tagilabue proposed moving the Pro Bowl from Hawaii to a foreign country prior to his retirement in 2006. Japan, Australia and Europe were also considered as possible future Pro Bowl locations.
___
The Star-Bulletin's Laurie Au and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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