NFL Pro Bowl Struggles to Attract Viewers in San Francisco Experiment

The league's attempt to revamp the all-star game with a flag football format in a convention center failed to resonate with fans.

Published on Feb. 6, 2026

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The NFL's experimental approach to the 2026 Pro Bowl in San Francisco, which featured a flag football format played in the Moscone Center convention hall, drew dismal television ratings. The game's telecast on ESPN attracted only 1.9 million viewers, marking a steep decline from previous years and raising questions about the future of the all-star exhibition.

Why it matters

The Pro Bowl has struggled with declining viewership in recent years, with the 2023 switch to a flag football format failing to reverse the trend. The league's attempt to freshen up the event by moving it out of a traditional football stadium and into a convention center also did not appear to resonate with fans, further jeopardizing the long-term viability of the game.

The details

The 2026 Pro Bowl telecast on ESPN drew only 1.9 million viewers, a significant drop from the 4.7 million viewers the game attracted across ESPN, ABC and Disney XD the previous year. The league had hoped that moving the game to a convention center and featuring a flag football format would help revive interest, but the novelty did not seem to pay off. Many fans expressed disappointment with the new format on social media, with one popular tweet describing the event as 'flag football in a warehouse on a Tuesday night'.

  • The 2026 Pro Bowl took place on Tuesday, February 4th.
  • The previous year's Pro Bowl, which featured the traditional tackle football format, drew 4.7 million viewers across multiple channels.

The players

Nicki Ewell

NFL Vice President of Events, who stated that the league was 'testing' the flag football format to 'show flag [football] as a standalone product separate from an NFL stadium'.

Steve Young

Hall of Famer and 49ers legend, who highlighted the injury risk that came with the traditional Pro Bowl format, saying 'the biggest beatings of my career happened at the Pro Bowl'.

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What they’re saying

“We're testing it because we want to show flag [football] as a standalone product separate from an NFL stadium. It's a different game.”

— Nicki Ewell, NFL Vice President of Events (SFGATE)

“There are Pro Bowls when I look back and I'm like, 'This is not right.' I just finished the Super Bowl, and now I'm going to the Pro Bowl — and I love being in Hawaii, but I'm not going to take a beating. It was irrational. It couldn't be sustained because, who's going to go do that and take that risk?”

— Steve Young (Dan Patrick Show)

What’s next

The NFL will need to decide how to once again shake up the Pro Bowl format in order to reverse the declining viewership and maintain interest in the all-star game.

The takeaway

The NFL's experiment with a flag football Pro Bowl in a convention center setting failed to resonate with fans, further jeopardizing the long-term viability of the all-star exhibition. The league faces a difficult challenge in finding a format that can revive interest and viewership in the event.