The numbers are in. According to the NFL, an average of 12.5 million people watched the Pro Bowl on Sunday night.
That’s 1.5 million more than the baseball All-Star game.
And while MDS posted basically the same information on Monday, this is an opportunity for me to address the broader question of why the NFL still stages what has become a modified version of two-hand touch.
They do it because people will watch it. Maybe they only watch because it’s on TV, but they watch. And maybe most of those “watching” are actually asleep and/or complaining incessantly about the quality of the play, but all that matters are the Nielsen numbers.
Thus, the Pro Bowl will endure, with free trips to Hawaii and some fans booing the actual or perceived lack of effort and most players doing whatever they can to avoid injury and a guy like Brandon Marshall playing really well and creating unrealistic expectations for himself heading in to the next season.