The 2021 NFL Pro Bowl will take place entirely on the gridiron visible in Madden NFL 21, featuring top players this season and other current players with stars, NFL legends, and Madden broadcasters in a series of weekly events, the NFL and publisher of Electronic Arts announced on Tuesday.
All participants will play Madden NFL 21 using Pro Bowl rosters during the week, and the games will culminate in an AFC-NFC match featuring 2021 Pro Bowl players. The Pro Bowl, an NFL all-star game, traditionally takes place one week before the Super Bowl, which could mark the Pro Bowl week this season from January 25-31, 2021.
It is unclear how the NFL will decide who will take part in the final, as the full Pro Bowl rankings will feature 88 players, 44 each from the AFC and NFC. All of the games will be available for viewing in “different stadiums,” and the event week will be included in a “special program” that will be played on ESPN and ABC, the NFL and EA said in a news release.
Voting for the 2021 Pro Bowl roster is now open, and NFL fans can vote for their favorite players on the NFL website again Madden NFL 21 on consoles as well Madden NFL 21 Phone on Android and iOS. Voting will also be available via Twitter, but from December 1-17 only. Fan voting will end on December 17, after which NFL players and coaches will vote; votes from the three parties will be measured equally in determining the roster.
“We are transforming the Pro Bowl of fans everywhere and bringing some amazing NFL experiences the way only Madden NFL can do,” Chris Bruzzo, senior vice president of marketing, marketing, and good play at EA, said in a press release. “We are delighted to be working with the NFL, our long-term partner, to take the Pro Bowl to the reality of the Madden NFL and be part of the first high-profile sporting event to be seen. Our community is hungry for communication skills, so we are always working to create more opportunities to bring their favorite sports closer. ”
Bruzzo’s statement is reminiscent of an announcement made in May when the EA, NFL, and NFL Players Association said they had approved a long-term extension of their long-term licenses for the Madden NFL video game franchise. They have announced that the renewal – reportedly worth at least $ 1.5 billion over the next five years – will allow them to build closer relationships and create new ways for football fans to communicate the game.
“This partnership will also focus on building, displaying and developing facilities to expand and deepen the Madden NFL world, affect the way it plays and feels, and how players connect to the NFL world as it happens,” the media said at the time. The visible Pro Bowl, with playful content and voting inside Madden, may not have been what they thought back then – when we only had a few months in the coronavirus epidemic – but it seems like an exciting way to deliver those unspecified statements.
Tuesday’s news comes almost a month after the NFL announced it had canceled the Pro Bowl due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The AFC-NFC tournament was originally scheduled to be held at Allegiant Stadium to close out the first season of the Raiders in Las Vegas. Allegiant Stadium is now set to host the 2022 Pro Bowl.
