NFL's all-star game found silver lining in Hawai'i

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

When the Pro Bowl first landed on these shores in 1980, the idea of it still being around for a 25th renewal this year seemed as far-fetched as, well, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck celebrating a silver anniversary together.

All but one of the past 24 Pro Bowls have been announced sellouts. The game has given fans a look at some of the NFL's best, including Oilers back Earl Campbell, below, and Eagles receiver Harold Carmichael, bottom.

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If the game didn't find a home here, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner columnist Melvin Durslag had surmised, "the next stop could be Hong Kong."

But the game never had to apply for a passport. After being passed around the NFL family as the orphan nobody wanted, the pro football all-star game found the most enduring home of its existence and a new life expectancy here.

It has played to sold-out crowds, adoring fans and sun-drenched afternoons at Aloha Stadium.

How long the game will remain a viable property is anybody's guess. But if not for the fortuitous decision to bring it here, the Pro Bowl would have gone the way of the leather helmet.

Until its first season here in 1980, the game had seemingly been everywhere else. It had fallen into such disfavor that the NFL shunted it around from city to city in the Sun Belt and beyond, including Seattle and Kansas City; basically any place that didn't have a foot of snow on the ground.

Still, it was such a tough sell. So much so that the NFL teams that hosted it were forced to tie the game into their season ticket packages, making it a mandatory buy, until the practice raised the hackles of customers and threats of lawsuits.

In the Pro Bowl's last year on the Mainland, the Rams "sold" a reported 50,000 tickets to the game as part of their season-ticket package, but news reports said just 38,000 showed up at the 90,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

At that point, the NFL didn't "award" the game to Honolulu as much as it said, "take it, please."

After confining it to league cities only, this was akin to leaving a baby on a stranger's doorstep with a note. Anything to keep it alive for the TV money that the game generated.

Thereafter, under NFL operation, it played Los Angeles often when not being passed around to member cities where several times it drew fewer than 25,000 fans.

Players weren't wild about returning to venues they'd already seen during the regular season, and areas that already had NFL teams found it increasingly difficult to get excited about a postseason all-star game. Unlike Major League Baseball, the NBA and NHL, the NFL couldn't very well play it in mid-season, exposing its stars to season-ending injuries.

Enter 5-year-old Aloha Stadium, which had seen the income potential after hosting a 1976 NFL exhibition between the San Francisco 49ers and San Diego Chargers. The stadium earned almost as much rent from the event ($25,000) as it was getting from a whole season of Hawaii Islanders baseball ($35,000), and was interested in getting the NFL back in some form.

Stadium manager Mackay Yanagisawa got the state and NFL together on a deal that immediately struck gold for all concerned.

Suddenly, selling seats was no longer a problem, and neither was getting most of the top players to at least think about coming.

Since moving here, only one of the past 24 Pro Bowls has not been announced as a sellout. And the exception came in the strike-shortened 1982 season.

The NFL got a site that made the game seem more like a reward for the players and their families. And Hawai'i was popular with players, some of whom, as quarterback Steve Young was known to do, practiced in slippers.

Lincoln Kennedy once said, "they ruin it (the week) by having a football game."

So popular did the trip to Hawai'i become that some players selected to the game, like Indianapolis teammates Peyton Manning and Edgerinn James, sprang for free trips for their offensive line as a well-done reward.

Legend has it that then-Tampa Bay coach John McKay once told his players, "Men, our goal this week is to be on the beach by 11:30 a.m. I'm just here to play golf, so get to know your assistant coaches."

For its part, the state got an attraction for local fans, and a marketing vehicle that reached into Mainland homes, many of them snowbound. At its height, the game was seen in more than 12 percent of U.S. TV households. In more recent years, the number has dropped as low as 4.2 percent.

And, no longer is it free. Successive contracts have raised to $5.38 million the amount that the state provides in subsidy through the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. For this, in addition to prime-time TV exposure, the state estimates 18,000 out-of-state visitors attend the game.

The memorable moments they have seen included John Elway's last uniformed appearance and some remarkable runs by Marshall Faulk.

And, there have been some only-in-the Pro Bowl moments: Barry Switzer coaching from the sideline while eating a hot dog, and the hurried sideline hunt for Troy Aikman, who was on his way to the airport for an early flight.

A quarter-century after the Pro Bowl landed here with an uncertain future, Hawai'i has not only succeeded in giving it new life but its own touch of history.