The NFL´s Pro Bowl Was Broken? Considering Players´ Incentives

Abstract

This paper examines the growing trend of NFL players to forego participation in the league´s yearly All-Star exhibition game, the Pro Bowl. Viewership of the Pro Bowl has been substantially lower than the average game day in recent years, causing controversial discussions about the viability of the game and its future. As a consequence, the league revised the Pro Bowl´s concept entirely in 2022.Since the major determinant of viewership demand is the participation of (superstar) players, this paper analyses the individual athletes’ economic incentives in the decision to participate. To this end, it models the athlete’s decision as a rational evaluation of cost-benefit under incentives of monetary reward and punishment. It uses unbalanced panel data on Pro Bowl players from the Super Bowl era (1971-2019), alongside viewership data and official league data. It applies a range of econometric methods (Pearson-correlations, graphical examination) to evaluate hypotheses about the players’ decision-making process. It concludes that the incentives to participate in the Pro Bowl for the majority of players—esp. viewership-driving superstar players—were weak. The monetary incentives in their previous form were not an efficient way of positively manipulating the percentage of superstars in the game. If the goal was higher demand from players, the incentive structure had to be changed. Such changes are inter alia, the reduction of costs for participation in the form of minimizing the risk of injuries. Furthermore, possible changes to the design of the incentive structure are proposed that contain general learnings for the design of such events.