Saturday, October 20, 2001
[ NFL HAWAII ]
Pro Bowl to The National Football League is expected to announce next week that the 2002 Pro Bowl will be played on Saturday, Feb. 9 at Aloha Stadium with the all-star game moving to Monday nights beginning in 2003.
move to Mondays
The NFL all-star game assumes
its new prime-time slot in 2003,
after a 1-year move to SaturdayBy Paul Arnett
parnett@starbulletin.comThis year's Pro Bowl was originally scheduled for Feb. 3, but had to be switched after the Super Bowl was moved to that weekend. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue opted to reschedule the Super Bowl after he postponed one week of games because of the terrorist attacks.
There also had been some talk of canceling one weekend of the playoffs to keep the Super Bowl on Jan. 27, but after working out a deal with officials of a national auto dealers convention in New Orleans, Tagliabue decided to start the playoffs one week later.
The 2002 Hula Bowl was to be part of an all-star weekend in Hawaii. Chief executive officer Lenny Klompus couldn't move the Hula Bowl to the same weekend as the Pro Bowl, keeping its original Feb. 2 date, instead.
"One thing we did do was move the starting time to 3 p.m.," Klompus said. "Our lead-in will be ESPN's Super Bowl show. Chris Berman is going to cut away to Chris Fowler in Maui, which is the kind of publicity you can't buy."
Saturday, Feb. 9 2002 Pro Bowl
Who: AFC and NFC all-stars
Where: Aloha Stadium
2003: The game moves to Mondays
Beginning in 2003, the Hula Bowl will be played on Saturday and the Pro Bowl will shift to Monday. This allows the college all-stars to face the Pro Bowl squad in a superstar competition on Sunday.
"We'll then fly our guys over to Oahu for the Pro Bowl," Klompus said. "We're also going to have a Heisman Trophy golf tournament that Thursday on Maui that a lot of the NFL players want to be a part of in the future. It's going to be a great week."
Klompus lost rivals.com as a sponsor after that computer Web site folded last year. Instead of having one title sponsor for the 2002 game, Klompus decided to have a group of advertisers help defray the costs.
"The good thing about that is we get to keep the name the Hula Bowl on Maui, instead of having a title sponsor in it," Klompus said. "We have one more sponsor expected to join our hui next week and we'll be ready to go. We're very excited about the game."
The original deal with the NFL called for the Hula Bowl to be played Saturday, Feb. 2 and the Pro Bowl the next day. Hula Bowl participants can remain the extra week to see the Pro Bowl this February if they like, according to Klompus. It depends on their schedule.
Ticket prices for the Pro Bowl have also been restructured. Prices for premium sideline seats could run as high as $75.
