2024 Pro Bowl: Game time, channel, how to watch and stream

With the Super Bowl still a week away, there are no NFL games today – the first football-free Sunday in five months. But there is the NFL Pro Bowl, the annual gathering of the leagues’s best players.

Or rather, the NFL Pro Bowl Games, which it was renamed last year as part of an overhaul in response to declining TV ratings and complaints from bored fans. Instead of a lackluster 11-on-11 football game, players now face off in several different skills competitions leading into Sunday’s seven-on-seven flag football tournament.

Back for the second straight season is Hall of Famer Peyton Manning and his younger brother, two-time Super Bowl champ Eli Manning. The duo are coproducing the games through their Omaha Productions company while serving at coaches for the AFC and NFC.

The Pro Bowl Games actually began Thursday night, with the NFC heading into the weekend with a 12-6 lead over the AFC. Some of the competitions that took place Thursday included dodgeball, precision passing, and a long snap competition featuring a stubborn Jason Kelce.

There are 12 more points up for grabs today — three for each of the four remaining skills competitions. The conferences will then face off in two flag football games, with six points each on the line.

All those scores will be combined heading into the third and final flag football game, which will end up determining which conference ends up winning the Pro Bowl Games. Beyond bragging rights, nothing is at stake on Sunday — it’s just an exhibition meant to pass the time during the long wait for Super Bowl LVIII next weekend between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.

The Pro Bowl action gets underway this afternoon on ESPN, ABC, and Disney XD at 3 p.m. Eastern from Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., and is scheduled to last four hours. The Pro Bowl Games will also stream on ESPN+, and air in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch the 2024 NFL Pro Bowl flag football tournament:

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Coverage begins on ESPN and ABC at 3 p.m. Eastern. Here’s the schedule:

Last year, no Eagles players participated in the Pro Bowl because they were busy preparing for the Super Bowl. Following this season’s collapse and their early playoff exit, Birds players have some free time on their hands.

There were six Eagles players selected for the Pro Bowl this season: Kelce, wide receiver A.J. Brown (who is not participating due to a knee injury), guard Landon Dickerson, tackle Lane Johnson, linebacker Haason Reddick, and running back D’Andre Swift. Quarterback Jalen Hurts and cornerback Darius Slay were added as alternates late last month.

Some Eagles players already competed on Thursday. In addition to Kelce’s longsnapping antics, Hurts participated in the precision passing competition and Swift help the NFC dominate in dodgeball.

On Sunday, Kelce, Hurts, Reddick, Slay, and Swift are all slated to participate in today’s flag football competition, while Dickerson and Johnson will lend their strength to the NFC’s tug-of-war team.

Thursday’s NFL Pro Bowl Skills Challenge averaged 1.14 million viewers on ESPN, an 8% increase compared to last year and the largest audience for the event since 2018, the network announced.

Last year’s Pro Bowl Games averaged about 6.5 million viewers, which isn’t bad for what is essentially a celebrity flag football game. But it was the smallest audience to tune into the Pro Bowl since ESPN averaged 5.96 million viewers in 2006, according to Sports Media Watch.

Here are the Pro Bowl’s TV ratings for the past 10 years as measured by Nielsen, according to Sports Business Journal:

This year’s Super Bowl will air on CBS, but that won’t prevent ESPN from having a large presence in Las Vegas next week.

Starting Thursday, nearly all the network’s daily shows — including Stephen A. Smith’s First Take, The Pac McAfee Show and NFL Live — will broadcast live from Las Vegas

Leading up to the Super Bowl on Sunday, ESPN will air Postseason NFL Countdown from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. After the game, they’ll turn to longtime broadcaster Chris Berman to anchor a special non-ESPN+ edition of Primetime, joined by Booger McFarland and former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith.

ESPN will also broadcast Super Bowl LVIII internationally to more than 125 countries and territories outside the United States though Monday Night Football announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman won’t be on the call. Instead, Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky, and former Eagles front office executive Louis Riddick will broadcast the game for Australia and New Zealand audiences.