Evidently, not everything the National Football League touches turns to gold.  It‘s surprising, considering when it comes to marketing, few do it better than the NFL.  Look at what they’ve managed to do. They took meaningless late-summer exhibitions, renamed them “pre-season” games; got them on TV and now even those glorified scrimmages are drawing crowds and making money.  They have turned their championship game into one of the biggest days of the year.  Think about it: next to Christmas, New Year’s and the Fourth of July, is there a bigger day in this country than Super Bowl Sunday? The entire nation shuts down and, along with much of the rest of the world, watches.  And when it comes to NFL gear, forget about a recession. Everything from hats to hoodies continues to sell like crazy.

But there’s this one nagging problem: the Pro Bowl. It’s the league’s all-star game, but no matter what the NFL does, it can’t seem to sell it. Few of the players really want to play, not many people want to watch and TV is not very excited about carrying it.  This year they tried playing it a week before at the same site as the Super Bowl (Miami) instead of holding it in Hawaii after The Big Game. It helped a bit. This year’s game drew about 70,000 spectators – some 20,000 more than attended in Hawaii the past decade.  Another 12.3 million watched on ESPN, the most since 2000 and up 40 percent from last year’s telecast on NBC.  It was shown later in the day, when more people are watching TV, but it had to fight the Grammys on CBS, which had twice the viewers.

So, you could say the NFL made progress. But you wonder if it will ever become an event anyone – players, fans, TV executives – really cares about.  It’s doubtful.   Even baseball, which has the absolute best all-star game of any sport, is not enjoying the success with its event that it once did.  Fact is, football just doesn’t make for good all-star games.  Some of us still remember when college all-stars played the NFL champions every year.  That game is long gone.  And it’s probably time to bury this all-star game as well.

What might work a lot better is for the NFL to take a page from ESPN’s book and create something similar to the ESPY Awards, an extravaganza attended by star athletes from every sport as celebrities honor everything from the best games to the top athletes. Celebrities could announce the all-star team, the MVP, the coach of the year, present a lifetime achievement award and throw in some big-name entertainment. A portion of the proceeds could benefit a different charity each year.  If the NFL marketers got their heads together on a show like that, it could become the biggest thing on TV. Except for the Super Bowl.

So what is the lesson in this for marketers? I see four:

• To everything there is a “season.” Sometimes you admit failure and move on.
• You can’t always make your event fit someone else's successful mold. The best concepts are created with the product in mind.
• Even the best fall short from time to time.
• Strong brands can overcome occasional weak links.

So, on Sunday enjoy one of the best marketing successes of our time. Forget about last week’s game. Which is what the NFL should do.