As the Pro Bowl prepares to debut in Orlando, Fla., this week, a bill in the state Legislature here aims to eventually return the all-star game to Hawaii and add an NFL exhibition game.
House Bill 134, authored by Rep. John Mizuno (D, Kalihi Valley, Kamehameha Heights), would create a “Hawaii Sports Task Force” with the 13-member body set up, in part, to “… plan and coordinate efforts to bring the Pro Bowl back to Hawaii and to establish Hawaii as a host site for a National Football League preseason game … ” among other events, according to the bill that has passed first reading.
The Pro Bowl, which was played at Aloha Stadium every year but two between 1980 and 2016, starts a three-year run in Orlando Sunday.
The NFL has not held a preseason game here since 1976, the second season of Aloha Stadium, when San Francisco and San Diego played.
Mizuno was among the six co-authors of a similar bill last session. Both that bill (HB 2229) and another (HB 1847), which proposed an appointed, unpaid “Sports and Entertainment Authority,” failed to pass.
Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui, who had created a sports advisory panel in 2015 to advise on setting up a sports commission, and backed HB 1847, is not pushing for one this year, Deputy Chief of Staff Ross Tsukenjo said.
Three members of Tsutsui’s advisory panel, John Fink, David Uchiyama and Keith Amemiya, have been added to the Aloha Stadium Authority.
Mizuno’s new bill would establish a task force under the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and charge the panel with making “recommendations to the legislature on addressing any issue the task force determines is feasible … ”
The task force would include the governor, mayors of the four counties, the chair of the stadium authority, manager of Aloha Stadium, state comptroller, president of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, representatives of the tourism industry, a Hawaiian cultural specialist and appointees.
