This is your fault, people. If you didn’t watch the Pro Bowl, there wouldn’t be a Pro Bowl.

But football fans do tune in. That’s the main, and perhaps only, reason why the NFL just announced that yet another Pro Bowl will be played on Jan. 27 in Hawaii.

From the release:

The NFL’s All-Star Game will be played the week before the Super Bowl for the fourth consecutive year. The 2012 Pro Bowl on NBC was watched by an average of 12.5 million viewers, the second most-watched NFL All-Star game since 2001 behind 2011’s game (13.4 million viewers). The Pro Bowl was the most-watched all-star game in all of sports in the 2011 season.

Yes, higher ratings than the Mid-Summer Classic, supposedly the best All-Star game in all of sports. NBC, which will air the Pro Bowl, won’t mind pulling in 12-13 million viewers on a Sunday night in January.

And then there’s this quote.

“The players believe that the Pro Bowl is an important tradition,” said NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth. “We worked hard with the league to make sure the best players in the NFL are honored for their achievements on the field.”

Yes, nothing like the tradition of seeing players at 1/4 speed trying to avoid turf burns.

Supposedly, the Pro Bowl was on life support. Guess not.

Long live the Pro Bowl.