Pro Bowl audience plummets by 18 percent for Sunday's flag-football game

The non-Pro Bowl Pro Bowl isn't doing very well with the customers.

Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the NFL's All-Star event attracted 4.7 million viewers on ABC, ESPN, and DisneyXD. The number reflects an 18-percent drop from last year. It's also the lowers live audience for the Sunday afternoon version of the event.

The inaugural flag-football based event two years ago had 6.3 million watching.

The good news, if there is any, is that the Thursday night skills challenge on ESPN dropped only one percent, from 1.14 million to 1.13 million.

On one hand, 4.7 million is still an impressive live audience. On the other hand, at some point the number falls to the point where the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

At a time when the NFL is plotting a professional flag football league, it's also fair to wonder whether the decline is an indication that fans won't be interested in a shorts and T-shirts version of the game.