Pro Bowl’s future in Hawaii unknown without contract

The Pro Bowl is five days away and we are left to wonder how much of a future the event might have here beyond Sunday.

The fact that it is the last one currently contracted between the NFL and the Hawaii Tourism Authority leaves plenty open to interpretation. Because, until recently, this is a relationship that had been as remarkable for its clarity and well-mapped direction as for its 32-year longevity.

The events themselves might be decided by a last-minute play, but the site and future of the contests rarely were. In early 2004, for example, the NFL had announced its intentions to keep the game here through 2009. And in ’09 we already knew it would return through ’12.

Now, in the absence of any announcement of intent — or even a pledge to work something out — it is anybody’s guess what comes after Sunday’s last pass.

The NFL says there is currently no agreement.

“We have been in ongoing discussions with the Hawaii Tourism Authority about future Pro Bowl games,” a league spokesman wrote in an email. “There is nothing to report at this time.” An HTA spokesman says, “we are still in negotiations.”

While everybody talks about making this year’s event a success, nobody is venturing so much as a toe beyond that. In the past the parties would invariably say something along the lines of “a few details remain to be worked out” or “we’re finalizing the language” when it got inside of three or four years out. This time there is none of that.

Which is part of the reason speculation has been that if the event returns here it might not be until 2014. And, even then, perhaps on an irregular basis. The Pro Bowl the way the football-viewing world has come to associate it, sharing a synonymity with Hawaii, may be about to change.

WITH A NEW commissioner atop 345 Park Avenue in New York has come the itch to move the game around and repackage it. In 2010 we saw the game relocated to Miami Gardens, Fla., site of that year’s Super Bowl, and moved to a week before the big game. It was the first time since 1980 it had been held away from Aloha Stadium.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s rant about the NFL “multimillionaires or billionaires or whatever they are” and what they do with the state’s $4 million annual fee apparently didn’t start a rush back to our shores.

Against that backdrop, speculation has been that the Pro Bowl might again run in tandem with the Super Bowl in 2013 in New Orleans and come back here to visit in 2014 when the Super Bowl is played in the colder climate of East Rutherford, N. J. What would happen in 2015, when the Super Bowl moves to Arizona, is food for thought and, just maybe, a sticking point with the proposal the HTA is said to have on the table.

You wonder how attractive the event would be for the HTA if Hawaii becomes only an occasional anchorage for the Pro Bowl instead of the home port.

So, in many ways the next contract — if there is to be one — has the potential to be the most important since the agreement that originally brought the event here four decades ago.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.