The Pro Bowl is not just switching dates, but networks as well.
The Pro Bowl will air on ESPN in 2010, the same year the game moves to the week between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl. ESPN will televise the Pro Bowl at 8 PM on January 31, 2010, the first time the network has carried the game since 2006.
The most recent NFL television contracts stipulated that the network carrying the Super Bowl would air that year’s Pro Bowl as well. For example, NBC will air this year’s Super Bowl on February 1, and then the Pro Bowl one week later. Had this remained the case, CBS would have aired the Pro Bowl in 2010.
Since moving from cable back to broadcast, ratings for the Pro Bowl have risen 70% — from a 3.7 in 2006, the last year the game aired on ESPN, to a 6.3 on FOX this year.
