With ratings waning, the Pro Bowl is headed back to broadcast television.
The NFL Pro Bowl will be televised on both ESPN and ABC this season, marking the game’s return to over-the-air TV after a three-year absence. The game will start at 3 PM ET, the first time it has aired during the day since 2009.
The move leaves ESPN without exclusive rights to either of its NFL postseason games. ABC has simulcast ESPN’s Wild Card playoff game for the past two years and will presumably do so again.
Ratings for the Pro Bowl have been in steady decline for the past six years, but the slide has accelerated since the game moved to ESPN in 2015. The most recent edition was the lowest rated since 2006 and trailed both the NBA and MLB All-Star games.
It seems evident that the NFL has concerns about putting postseason events exclusively on cable. ESPN’s first exclusive Wild Card game broadcast, Cardinals-Panthers in 2015, was the league’s lowest rated playoff game since at least 1998. The network would not get another shot. Five months later came the announcement that ABC would begin simulcasting the game.
(Wed. news from ESPN PR 5.24)
