In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League (NFL). Since the merger with the rival American Football League (AFL) in 1970, it has been officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference (AFC) against those in the National Football Conference (NFC).

Unlike most other sports leagues, which hold their all-star games during the halfway point of their respective regular seasons, the Pro Bowl is played at the end of the NFL season. The first Pro Bowl, featuring the all-stars of the 1938 season, was played on January 15, 1939 at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field. The game was then played at various venues before being held at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii for 30 consecutive seasons from 1980 to 2009. The 2010 Pro Bowl was played at Sun Life Stadium, the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins and host site of Super Bowl XLIV, on January 31, the first time ever that the Pro Bowl was held before the championship game, with the conference teams not including players from the teams that will be playing in the Super Bowl. The event is scheduled to return to Hawaii in 2011 and 2012.