NFL Eliminates Pro Bowl Game, Shifts Emphasis to Flag Football

The Pro Bowl game is no more.

The NFL announced Wednesday that its All-Star Game, once a staple of the league’s calendar with matchups between the best players from the AFC and NFC, respectively, would be eliminated.

Players will still receive Pro Bowl recognition, but the game itself will no longer take place, making the NFL the first major pro sports league to abandon its traditional All-Star Game completely.

Starting this season, a total of 88 players from offense, defense and special teams will be recognized as Pro Bowlers, but there will be no replacement selections. Those players will be announced in late December and honored with an in-person celebration during the traditional Pro Bowl weekend in Los Angeles, site of this season’s Super Bowl.

Pro Bowlers will be recognized on their uniforms, and will receive a personalized Pro Bowl trading card created in partnership with Topps.

“The Pro Bowl has always been about recognizing the players who distinguish themselves as the very best in the NFL,” said Peter O’Reilly, NFL Executive Vice President, Club Business, International and League Events. “A Pro Bowl selection will return to its original purpose, honoring the best of the best. We want that distinction to carry even greater meaning for the players, their families, their clubs and our fans.”

There had been waning interest in all corners for a traditional All-Star Game, and the physicality of the sport played a part in lessening the desire of players to compete in another game once their season was over.

“This direction came directly from our continued conversations with players and what they value most about the Pro Bowl,” said Troy Vincent, NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations and a five-time Pro Bowl selection as a defensive back with the Philadelphia Eagles. “Being selected by your peers, coaches and fans as one of the very best at your position carries tremendous meaning. We heard clearly that the distinction matters, and our focus is on making the recognition that comes with it worthy of what these players accomplished on the field.”

Emphasis on Flag Football

The demise of the Pro Bowl comes as the NFL is placing greater emphasis on flag football as a way to grow the sport. Pro Bowl weekend, which kicks off Super Bowl week in early February 2027, will include a showcase of the professional flag league the NFL is creating in partnership with TMRW Sports.
The plan is for that league to launch in 2027, one year before flag football makes its Olympic debut at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. More than 200 NFL players representing 25-plus countries have expressed interest in competing for their respective countries in Olympic flag football. Player acclimation camps, run by USA Football, will begin in early 2027.

Changing Formats

For decades, the NFL had a stable All-Star Game format that mirrored what other major pro leagues offered: the best players from one league, or conference, against the best from the other. From the 1950 season through 1969, the NFL All-Star Game matched East vs. West, but with the merger starting that split the league into the AFC and NFC in 1970, those conferences sent their best players to the renamed Pro Bowl.

From the 1979 season through 2013 the game was played at Aloha Stadium in Hawaii. That last year was the first of three seasons in which the competing teams were not made up of players from specific conferences. The AFC vs. NFC model returned from 2016-19 and in 2021, interrupted by an esports-only edition of the game during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. For the past four years the league has had a Pro Bowl Games, a combination of skills competitions and flag football games.

What will go down in history as the final version of the Pro Bowl Games took place last February at the Moscone Center, an exhibition complex in San Francisco.

As the league changed the game’s format, viewership took a massive hit. The 2022 edition, the last time that a tackle football game was played, an average of 6.7 million viewers tuned in. When the switch was made to the Pro Bowl Games, viewership cratered, dropping to 6.3 million in 2023, then 5.8 million in 2024, 4.7 million in 2025 and 2 million in 2026.

Other leagues have tinkered with their formats in recent years, most notably the NBA and NHL. Major League Baseball, which staged the first All-Star Game in 1933, has stuck to its American League-vs.-National League format, and, aided by having less competition in mid-summer, has continued to be a ratings draw. This year’s game, in Philadelphia, drew just shy of 9 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes, a 21% increase over 2025.