Pro Bowl - Television

Television

• Under the current NFL television contract, the network which airs the Super Bowl will air the Pro Bowl. The 2007 game on CBS was held on the Saturday after Super Bowl XLI because of the 49th Grammy Awards. The 2008 game was on Fox, broadcaster of Super Bowl XLII. Likewise, the 2009 game was on NBC, broadcaster of Super Bowl XLIII. CBS sold off their rights to the 2010 game to ESPN, which was played a week before the Super Bowl at the Super Bowl site, Sun Life Stadium.

• The Pro Bowl was originally broadcast on an alternative basis by CBS and NBC (with the other network broadcasting the Super Bowl) from 1971–1974. Later, the game was broadcast as part of the Monday Night Football package on ABC from 1975–1987 and again from 1995–2003. In 2004–2006, ABC sold its rights to the Pro Bowl to sister network ESPN (who had shown it from 1988–1994). In those years, the ESPN Sunday Night Football crew covered the game.

• In the early 2000s, after suffering through several years of dwindling ratings ABC considered moving the game to Monday night. The idea was scrapped, however, when ABC decided to sell off the rights to sister network ESPN.

• Throughout his broadcasting career, John Madden declined to be part of the announcing crew when his network carried the Pro Bowl due to his aviatophobia and claustrophobia (a joke referencing both is made in the Madden NFL '97 before the beginning of the Pro Bowl in season mode, where Madden quips that he drove his "Madden Bus" to Hawaii, rather than flying). Until Madden's retirement from broadcasting after the 2009 Pro Bowl, it had only occurred twice: former San Diego Chargers quarterback and MNF personality Dan Fouts, whom Madden had replaced, took his place on ABC in 2003, and Cris Collinsworth took his place on NBC in 2009 (Collinsworth ended up replacing Madden permanently upon the latter's retirement).

• ESPN will hold exclusive rights to the Pro Bowl from 2015 through 2022.