Please make this Pro Bowl Madden stream a regular thing

No, this is not a case of keeping the Pro Bowl in a virtual setting forever. I hope that one day soon we can travel normally so that the players who won it can make the trip to Orlando. But the NFL Madden Stream did work, when it comes to the quality of the content.

If you missed it over the weekend, the league decided to run an official Pro Bowl stream, which was played virtually on Madden 21 by athletes and celebrities including Snoop Dogg and Marshawn Lynch. While the game itself has been criticized for its glitches and repetitiveness – in many ways, not much has changed in the series in several years – but it’s still Madden. For football fans, this is still the best way to play football virtually. Other independent endeavors, like Maximum Football and Axis Football, just don’t have the budget to maintain themselves as anything other than an arcade-style alternative at best. Someone would joke that this is what Madden is reduced to, but it is neither here nor there.

And the favorite savior of soccer games, 2K Sports, hasn’t released a soccer title since the legendary NFL 2K5. The company has a deal with the NFL, announced last year, but publication will be limited.football game experience without simulation. So it will probably be an arcade game with a better budget.

Regarding the Pro Bowl stream, three things were immediately clarified.

1) TIt would be a missed opportunity if the NFL didn’t try to build that leg of content. All leagues, and really businesses in general, should add resources to grow their digital presence so that they don’t just publish random self-promotion. It gets old and out of date quickly. People need to look to video games as a method to tap into other generations of people who play more than they watch. How many people do you know who would rather play Madden than watch an actual soccer game? Plus, it just adds versatility to the type of content you produce, which the NFL could use given its shortcomings elsewhere, like hiring coaches of color.

2) LGetting into video games doesn’t need to revolve around the actual Pro Bowl – but it does require a constant supply of engaging personalities, even if it’s only three or four at a time, to run the event. The Pro Bowl flow worked thanks to the eight players involved: Deshaun Watson, Keyshawn Johnson, Derrick Henry and Snoop for the AFC, which faced Kyler Murray, Bubba Wallace, Jamal Adams and Lynch for the NFC, with hosts Charissa Thompson and Michael Strahan. The show itself was broadcast live, but was clearly pre-recorded, which was pprobably a brilliant idea on the league’s part, given the amount of profanity that had to be paged. (I’d love to hear swear words, but I don’t blame them for censoring the Pro Bowl. It’s different.)

3) TThese gatherings would give birth to stars in a sport where athletes must wear helmets. Football players are difficult to market because, even in the case of some greats, much of the general public could not even say with confidence what they know what they know. look like – no matter how hilarious they might be on Twitch or YouTube. As you might expect, Lynch stole the show, but everyone had at least a few reel-worthy moments.

In a sport where long careers are rare, this would also be a productive way for players to build their presence off the field, using their personalities and whatever they could offer on those feeds. What if for a random conversation, that we learn that an offensive guard is a cook worthy of a chef. Or that a back-up ball carrier, a player you know by fantasy, is a legitimate poet. Or that your favorite cornerback is an expert coder. Or that any of these guys are a freak in Madden.

Just like the real Pro Bowl, the results wouldn’t really matter. When people listen to podcasts, their main concern is dynamics. The same rules apply on Twitch. Just create great content, no matter how “good” it is, because if you’re smart you’ll measure things by impact, not numbers. And a regular screening would have an impact if it was presented to us correctly and consistently.