Are we losing our sports flagship or a $5.2 million albatross?
I say it’s more of the latter.
You’ll get no bitter “Bye, Felicia” from me. Here’s a sincere a hui hou. Maybe we’ll see you again, down the road, Pro Bowl. When you’re better and we’re better. Let’s still be friends. (That doesn’t always work, but hey .. we can try.)
As of late Thursday it really looked like the plug had been pulled on the four-decade relationship between our state and the Pro Bowl — perhaps for good.
Or for bad, if you’re among that shrinking group of advocates for continuing to host what used to be the NFL’s all-star game; in recent years it had become more a gathering of some pro football players pretending to play football. No one should ever have to ask, “Hey, who’s that guy?” at an all-star game.
So — unless the many credible media outlets reporting and confirming Thursday the Pro Bowl is on its way to Orlando starting in 2017 — it’s time for us to mahalo the NFL.
And I mean that with all sincerity.
First, thank you for 30 great years (yes, the Pro Bowl was here for 34, but the last few can’t be described as “great”).
Secondly, thank you for taking your leave at this time.
It’s too soon for some to see but this is a good split at a good time.
Yes, it appears you’re the one who “opted out.” Losing you isn’t good, but you staying right now would be worse.
Let’s call it a wake-up call. If we’re going to host big games, we’ve got to get better.
Wow, I said “games.” Meant to say “events.” Because the Pro Bowl isn’t a game anymore, if it ever was.
It’s a two-way thing. If you still love and want the Pro Bowl, you have your choice of three-letter entities at which to spew your four-letter epithets. You can blame the NFL, you can blame the HTA.
Sometimes you break up because it’s inevitable things will get worse if you don’t. You want to make it work because it did so well in the past. But that was a long time ago and too many things have changed.
Maybe you think you’re staying together for the good of the kids. But that’s not always true.
That was always my deciding factor with the Pro Bowl … the excitement for Hawaii’s youngsters, the chance to see their NFL heroes up close, maybe get a picture with them, or something signed (even though these days it might be an autograph from the NFC’s ninth-best quarterback).
But reports of players being “too tired” to show up for Play 60 events this year nixed that. When you start disappointing the kids, it’s time for a break.
And what of this? What fan/tourist — at least one not on a Trumped-up budget — is going to pay thousands for a Pro Bowl vacation if his or her favorite team has a chance to make it to the Super Bowl — meaning there would be no players from that team at the Pro Bowl?
As we’ve said many times: Pro Bowl before Super Bowl, no bueno.
It’s been clear for a while we’re not all rowing in the same direction, or even consistently within ourselves. Remember then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie, sabotaging his own news conference on another matter in 2011 with an anti-Pro Bowl rant? He reversed his field later, but the message was clear: The state’s highest elected official said we’ve got better things to do with (then) $4 million a year.
True. One of them would be to gussy up or replace Aloha Stadium — which needs to be done, NFL or no NFL.
But the venue has continued to decay as politicians continually kick the problem down the road — so badly that it became the scapegoat for the U.S. Women National Soccer Team’s labor dispute.
Also, event management was so horrible for this year’s Pro Bowl that some fans gave up on getting into the stadium after hours of trying. Traffic patterns around Halawa were like the skies above LAX would be without air traffic controllers. Again, you can blame the locals, or you can blame the NFL “advisers.”
Or, don’t blame anyone. Thank them, because this is a divorce, or trial separation, both parties need.
We’ve seen what a dying football “all-star” event looks like, up-close. The final years of the once-proud Hula Bowl were a really bad, and really expensive, joke — from begging for players to begging for fans.
Good luck Orlando. If you get even half as many good years with the Pro Bowl as we did, you’ll have done great.
But maybe — like the all-star events of other major sports — the NFL should just go to one-night stands.
And our state can easily find other things to do with $5.2 million than prop up an increasingly dysfunctional marriage.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.
