Multi-Year Deal: NFL to move Pro Bowl from Hawaii to Orlando
NFL: …A joint news conference featuring Disney, ESPN and the NFL will take place Wednesday in Florida to announced a change in venue for the NFL's all-star festivities from mainstay Honolulu, NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday, per sources informed of the deal.
The 2017 Pro Bowl will be played in Orlando, per Rapoport, the first year of a multi-year deal to play the game in central Florida….
The news conference likely will touch on an endless array of tie-in opportunities between Orlando, broadcast partner ESPN and its parent company, Disney, which has a massive, sprawling theme park in the area. Florida has not hosted a Pro Bowl since 2009, when the game was played at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens….
May 21, 2016: The NFL Pro Bowl Is Moving to Orlando
read … NFL.com
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The NFL Pro Bowl Is Moving to Orlando
by Scott Soshnick, Bloomberg News, May 19, 2016 (excerpt)
The National Football League is moving its Pro Bowl to Orlando from Honolulu, which has hosted the all-star event every year but twice since 1979, three people familiar with the matter said….
…In Orlando, the game will be played at the Citrus Bowl, which underwent a $200 million renovation two years ago. Greg Creese, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Sports, which promotes local tourism, declined to comment.
The NFL’s Pro Bowl contract with Hawaii’s tourism authority expires on May 31, and the league can opt out of the agreement.
The Pro Bowl drew a 5.0 overnight rating on ESPN this year, down from 5.6 the previous year on the same network. It drew a 6.7 on NBC in 2014. While ratings have slipped, the Pro Bowl is consistently the highest-rated all-star game among the four major U.S. pro sports leagues….
read … Bloomberg News
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NFL: Deal not Finalized
PBN: Despite reports that the National Football League's Pro Bowl will move from Honolulu to Orlando, Florida, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy maintained Thursday that no deal had been finalized.
“No deal is done with any of the interested cities,” he wrote to Pacific Business News in an email. “Multiple cities have expressed interest in hosting the Pro Bowl, including Honolulu, Houston, Orlando and Sydney, Australia. We do not have a comment on discussions with any of these cities.”
When asked to comment, the Hawaii Tourism Authority said it had “nothing further to add to the NFL’s position,” through a spokesman….
read … An Article Wrongly Titled ‘NFL denies report that Pro Bowl is moving from Honolulu to Florida’
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