Off the field, Pro Bowl is far more compelling

In the back rooms, the Pro Bowl is doing something it has rarely done on the field: go into overtime.

An announcement on the future site for the NFL’s controversial all-star game was supposed to have been made before the last one teed it up Jan. 29 at Aloha Stadium. Then, the expectation was, an announcement was to have come in the days immediately after the owners gathered for the Feb. 5 Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

So far there has been more silence than clarification from the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters with the future of the game more up in the air than it has ever been in the 33 years since it began coming here. All of which has given the Pro Bowl a lot more offseason drama than it ever enjoyed on the field.

Officially, the last word from the NFL was, “we are exploring all options.”

But, really, how many can the NFL have if it wants to keep the game?

Which tends to make you wonder if the disappointment of what took place in the AFC’s 59-41 victory over the NFC might have actually aided Hawaii’s case to keep the exhibition on these shores.

Had the event been more entertaining and less of a target of boos, you suspect, it might have already been packed off to New Orleans for ’13 to be packaged with the Super Bowl.

If not as a warm-up act for the Super Bowl then as a brush-back pitch for our governor after some of his remarks.

But with the lollygagging that took place at Aloha Stadium and the resulting storm of criticism it generated, maybe this is the only place that wants anything to do with the Pro Bowl. Maybe, with the visibility and fans it brings here, however dwindling, it still has a market here.

I mean, can you see New Orleans pleading for the Pro Bowl in ’13? New Jersey demanding it in ’14 or Phoenix saying pretty please for ’15? “What have we done to deserve this?” they might ask.

The NFL hates to be embarrassed in public, and this last Pro Bowl sure left a lot of red faces. Hence commissioner Roger Goodell’s comments about his disappointment. Remarks no doubt calculated to gain some leverage with the players over how the game operates in ’13.

With 12.5 million TV viewers — more than a million above Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game — the NFL undoubtedly still sees some use in giving the Pro Bowl another try. Why kick it to the curb if they can inject even a modicum of competitiveness back into the event?

If it is going to keep the Pro Bowl alive, the NFL knows it has to keep players happy, which means offering something that will appeal to their families. New Jersey in late January probably isn’t the ticket.

Word was the NFL was looking into the possibility of trying to relocate it to Orlando or Los Angeles among non-Hawaii, non-NFL city alternatives — Disney parks being the obvious lure for players and their families.

But Orlando, which a decade ago fought vigorously for the game, has witnessed the Pro Bowl’s decline, and if there is renewed interest in going after it, Orlando has disguised it well. The Pro Bowl bombed in Los Angeles in a previous life, which was how it ended up here as a last-chance alternative.

Whether the NFL likes it or not, Hawaii might be that again.

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