Pro Bowl moving from Orlando to Las Vegas in 2021
The Pro Bowl is leaving Orlando for at least one year.
The NFL announced Tuesday the 2021 Pro Bowl will be held at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Jan. 31. It will air on ESPN, ABC and ESPN Deportes.
The Pro Bowl was played at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium for four consecutive seasons starting in 2016. While the game was often marred by poor weather, NFL officials generally gave Central Florida positive reviews.
The NFL launched numerous community projects in conjunction with the game, holding a tree-planting ceremony in Orlando’s West Lakes community, repairing a community garden in Parramore and creating a community garden at the Rosemont Community Center. Pro Bowl athletes traditionally visit local hospitals and participate in competitions with local athletes. Practices were held at ESPN Wide World of Sports and were open to fans.
Florida Citrus Sports CEO Steve Hogan has long noted the NFL has options to host the game in other cities, but he remains hopeful the game could make its way back to Orlando in the future.
The NFL has not a ruled out a return in the future.
“We look forward to partnering with the Raiders and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to bring the excitement of Pro Bowl week to our Las Vegas fans and community for the first time” NFL executive vice president of club business and league events Peter O’Reilly said in a news release.
“We thank the city of Orlando for its outstanding partnership in helping us to grow and evolve the Pro Bowl over the last four years. To our partners at
players are easing back into their routine following a long stretch without supervised activities.
Head strength coach Nick Savage is a renowned taskmaster who has been instrumental to the program’s quick turnaround under Mullen, who arrived in 2017 on the heels of a 4-7 season.
But Mullen said Savage and his assistants know safety comes first.
Players returned in late May for physicals in varying levels of conditioning. All in all, though, the Gators were prepared to get back to work.
“I think we’ve been very slowly building back up,” Mullen said. “I think we’ve been slowly building rather testing or pushing guys to see where we’re at, how great of shape we came back in. I think our guys, they understand
Florida Citrus Sports, Camping World Stadium, ESPN Wide World of Sports, and Visit Orlando, we appreciate your tremendous efforts over the years and look forward to creating more memorable moments together in the future.” what our program’s about. I think our guys, as best they could, were able to stay in shape.
“I know there were a lot of guys coming from different areas that had to deal with a lot of different limitations in training.”
One thing all returning Gators had in common was the desire to get back on schedule and into a regimen.
“I think you can talk to a lot of our players, if there’s one thing they’re hungry for is to get back to somewhat of a routine,” Mullen said. “Even though it’s still kind of a very limited routine, but to have as much of a little bit of routine they can fall back on as possible. I think that’s been one of the trickier parts of things.”