Glendale, Arizona comes through again: NFL Pro Bowl on Schedule

NFL Pro Bowl to be played in Arizona in 2015

By +The Associated Press

Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito (68), Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey (53) and Houston Texans guard Wade Smith (74), all of the AFC, congratulate teammate Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green (18) on his touchdown against the NFC during the first quarter of the NFL Pro Bowl in Honolulu. (Jan 27, 2013) (Credit: AP)

HONOLULU - The next Pro Bowl will be played in Arizona at the site of the Super Bowl, skipping Hawaii for the first time since 2010.

The game will return to Hawaii in 2016, the NFL announced Wednesday.

The 2015 game will be the third time the Pro Bowl is held in the same city as the Super Bowl. The NFL's all-star game took place in Los Angeles after the first Super Bowl in 1967, then the two games weren't in the same city again until South Florida in 2010.

Since 1980, all but one Pro Bowl has been held at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, the college football home of the +University of Hawaii - West Oahu (Rainbow Warriors).

The Pro Bowl will remain a week before the Super Bowl, as it has the last five years. The new format introduced after last season, which scrapped the AFC vs. NFC matchup, will be retained. The new format splits the all-stars through a schoolyard-style draft, a setup loosely based on fantasy sports meant to play toward player egos and the changing ways fans are interacting with the game.

The Pro Bowl after this coming season will take place Jan. 25, 2015, at University of Phoenix Stadium. A year later, the game will be held Jan. 31, 2016, at Aloha Stadium.

Tourism officials in Hawaii said they were pleased that the game was coming back in 2016 and the deal has an option for the game to be played in Hawaii in 2017.

"While we would like to have had the Pro Bowl in Hawaii in 2015, the return of the Pro Bowl in 2016 provides the state with an opportunity to showcase our islands' unique culture and beauty," Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie said in a statement.

The +Hawaii Tourism Authority, the main agency that markets the state to tourists, said the 2014 Pro Bowl generated nearly $72 million in direct visitor spending, including spending by people who traveled with Pro Bowl attendees.

The agency said Hawaii will pay $5 million to support hosting the Pro Bowl in 2016 and repurpose funds set aside for the 2015 game toward other initiatives, including drawing more conventions and tourists from Asia.

Super Bowls, college football national championships, now the +NFL Pro Bowl and perhaps soon the +NCAA Men's Basketball March Madness Final Four.

Let's give credit where it's due: University of Phoenix Stadium has delivered.

The NFL announced Wednesday what had been rumored: the Valley will play host to the 2015 NFL Pro Bowl a week before UofP also is the site of the Super Bowl.

Those two events, along with the Waste Management Phoenix Open, will put the Valley at the epicenter of the sports world for a couple of weeks.

And it is the kind of impact that Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill envisioned long before the unique domed stadium with a retractable roof and slide-in natural turf that opened in 2006 was even on a drawing board.

When Bidwill moved the Cardinals to Arizona for the 1988 NFL season, it reportedly was with the understanding that – at the very least – Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium would be upgraded with a new press box and luxury suites and an effort would be made to build a new domed stadium near downtown Phoenix.

And at one point, there even was a plan in place to build the state-of-the-art facility just west of where Chase Field and US Airways Center are located today.

The plan fell through when, depending on the version you believe, financing fell apart or because the Cardinals refused to agree to a 40-year commitment, paralleling the terms Jerry Colangelo agreed to when US Airways Center – then America West Arena – was built.

At any rate, Bidwill never got that downtown stadium. And a push to get one built on the site of what is now Mesa Riverview also failed. Meanwhile, the Cardinals foundered and their fans fried during most of an 18-year stay at Sun Devil Stadium.

One sports business expert predicted when the Riverview project was on the table that if the Cardinals decided to move, another NFL team would jump into the market.

"The market's too big, growing too fast," Mark Rosentraub, an Indian professor of economics told The Arizona Republic at the time. "Sports follows wealth. Sports doesn't create wealth."

Well, tell that to Los Angeles.

Bidwill and then his son, Cardinals President Michael Bidwill, never gave up on the quest for a new stadium, insisting all along that it would provide more than a venue for the moribund football club.

Sun Devil Stadium was picked to play host to Super Bowl XXX in 1996, but the Cardinals and the NFL made it clear that future Super Bowls would depend on a new stadium. Bidwill also insisted that new revenue streams would make the team more competitive.

Oh, economic impact numbers will always be questionable. And the city of Glendale has a slew of financial issues, more closely tied to the failures of past Coyotes ownership, the primary tenant of Jobing.com Arena.

Ultimately, though, Glendale will grow and development will continue around the stadium.

And in the meantime, the Valley has become a player on the national sports scene because of UofP, the +Arizona Cardinals and the +Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

The facility played host to the BCS National Championship game in 2007 and 2011. It housed the Super Bowl in 2008 and will again in 2015.

And without it, what are the chances that the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl would have survived its foibles and remained in the BCS and, subsequently, in the College Football Playoff rotation of stadiums that will play host to national semifinal games?

The stadium and Glendale were awarded the second National Championship game, which will be played on Jan. 11, 2016. And the Fiesta Bowl comes up in the semifinal rotation for the first time on Dec. 31, 2016.

Maybe more important than all, the Cardinals have sold out every one of their home games since the place was built. And, for the most part, the team has been more competitive as a result.

Heck, they did something in 2009 that few would ever have believed – they played in a Super Bowl. Maybe even Bidwill never saw that coming.