NFL campaign hopes to boost interest in Pro Bowl
Bloomberg News Service
The National Football League plans to launch a new marketing campaign for the Pro Bowl in an effort to spark interest in the league's annual all-star game played at Aloha Stadium, league executives said.
The league plans to expand fan voting for the game through Viacom Inc.'s Blockbuster Video stores, increase advertising and work with Hawai'i tourism officials to sell discount travel packages, said Jim Steeg, the NFL's vice president of special events.
Although the Pro Bowl has sold out 21 of the 22 years it has been in Hawai'i, the interest on the Mainland is sliding.
Television ratings on ABC have fallen 60 percent the past five years, and the NFL draws about one-tenth the number of fan voters as Major League Baseball's All-Star Game.
"We've been underplaying the Pro Bowl for years," said Dennis Lewin, the NFL's senior vice president of broadcast planning. "We've got 90 of the game's best players in one of the most beautiful destinations in the world. It's time to give this event its due."
The new voting system will use kiosks at about 5,200 Blockbuster Video stores, said company spokeswoman Liz Greene. A similar campaign for the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards show drew 22 million fans who voted through kiosks in Blockbuster's stores and on their Internet site.
It was not known if kiosks will be located at Hawai'i Blockbuster venues. An official at the region office in Hawai'i was unaware of the NFL's plan.
Paul Thorpe, director of operations for the Hawai'i region office of Blockbuster, is out of town and could not be reached for comment.
The NFL drew 880,000 fan votes last season, compared with 10.5 million for Major League Baseball.
"Those are the kinds of numbers we'd like to see," Steeg said. "We're going to push it everywhere we can."
The league and Blockbuster will begin the marketing campaign Oct. 15, Greene said.
Fans pick the starters of baseball's All-Star Game, while fans', coaches' and players' votes each count for one-third in the NFL game.
Hawai'i tourism officials also want to boost media coverage of the game, by offering discounted travel packages for reporters, said Rick Chastain, vice president of closely held Team Unlimited, which does sports marketing for the state of Hawai'i.
Between 50 and 100 members of the media covered this year's Pro Bowl, compared to between 2,000 and 3,000 who covered the Super Bowl between the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants a week earlier, said NFL spokeswoman Leslie Hammond.
Chastain said the state and NFL also will combine efforts to create more attractive family travel packages to the game by using wholesale travel agencies. These packages, he said, will be advertised through links between Hawai'i's visitors web site, GoHawaii.com, and the NFL's Internet site, NFL.com.
A year ago, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority voted to spend nearly $20 million to keep the Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium through 2005. The contract also expanded Hawai'i's options in developing new business, including allowing the state a limited use of the Pro Bowl logo, the right to develop a Pro Bowl museum and other chances to recapture its investment through tour packages and sponsorships.
