A few years back, the Pro Bowl was a bit of a mess. Following the 2012 edition of the annual game, in which the AFC beat the NFC 59-41, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers called out some of his NFC teammates, saying they didn’t want to play in the game and didn’t put forth any effort when they did. Some fans at Aloha Stadium in Hawaii had booed the play on the field. Commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN Radio he was considering suspending the game if things didn’t change.

“We’re either going to have to improve the quality of what we’re doing in the Pro Bowl or consider other changes,” Goodell said at the time. But rather than canceling the Pro Bowl all together, the league worked with the NFL Players’ Association in an attempt to shake the contest out of its languor.

Three years later, the Pro Bowl has been radically altered. Gone are the conferences, the teams are picked by NFL legends acting as “team captains” and a whole bunch of rules have been changed. It still may be a bit of a mess, but the league is hoping it’s a more fun mess.

Last year was the league’s first experiment with the new, un-conferenced format. Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders served as team captains and picked players in a kind of fantasy football come to life. This year, Hall of Fame wide receivers Cris Carter and Michael Irving picked the teams (“It’s nice, I guess,” Colts quarterback Andrew Luck said, in a pretty good summary of what it must feel like to be picked first in the Pro Bowl three days after losing an AFC Championship Game).

The rule changes are meant to add some spice to the game. Instead of changing possession at the end of the half like in a regular game, teams now switch every quarter, giving fans the chance to see two minute drills four times a game. Defenses are now allowed to play some zone coverages, which wasn’t allowed in previous years.

The NFL seems pleased with the changes. “The new Pro Bowl format continues to add excitement,” says NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, in an email response. “Players and fans are receptive to the changes and we are seeing a more competitive game.”

This year, the league is experimenting with rule tweaks to highlight the skill involved in the kicker position: the goal post is being narrowed by four-and-a-half feet and extra points will be moved back to the 15-yard-line.

“We are exploring the potential of implementing the narrower goal posts and moving back the extra point in the upcoming season,” McCarthy says.

On the sponsorship side, the game lacks the Super Bowl’s mega-ratings, but it’s still an opportunity for businesses to get their message in front of a sizable football-loving audience. For the third year in a row, McDonalds will be the game’s presenting sponsor, part of a multi-year agreement that made the fast-food chain the league’s official quick-service restaurant.

The league also incorporated a community service element into the Pro Bowl celebration. On Wednesday, it hosted the “NFL Play 60 Community Blitz,” in which players and NFL representatives teamed up with local volunteers to participate in five service projects, ranging from a youth fitness challenge in Glendale, Ariz., to the building of a fitness trail for national guardsmen at the Arizona National Guard Armory in Phoenix.

For the first time in five years and just the second time since 1980, the Pro Bowl will not be played in Hawaii. This year’s game takes place at University of Phoenix Stadium, the site of Super Bowl XLIX. While the game will return to Hawaii in 2016, the league has not confirmed the site of any Pro Bowl after that. The game has traditionally been a boon to tourism in Hawaii, generating more than $70 million in visitor spending, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, the organization that reportedly negotiated intensely with the NFL to get the game back next year. The economic impact of this year’s game on Arizona will be difficult to gauge, given that it’s taking place the week before the Super Bowl in the same location.

On TV, the Pro Bowl returns to ESPN this year for the first time since 2010. Rights to the game were secured as part of a much larger eight-year rights extension agreed to in 2011 and which began this past season.

While TV ratings are still low by NFL standards, they are by no means anything to scoff at. Last year’s game drew 11.7 million viewers, down about a half-million from 2013, but still the highest rated All-Star game among the four major professional sports leagues in North America. And forget comparisons to other exhibitions, the Pro Bowl audience was still better than really important games in other sports. It got a larger number than the biggest audiences for the NBA Conference Finals, the NHL Stanley Cup Finals and both Major League Baseball Championship Series.

If you think about it, the Pro Bowl kind of serves as a microcosm of the entire NFL: even when it’s a mess, we can’t help but watch.

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