Revolutionizing the Game: 3 options for upgrading the NFL fan experience

The NFL has never been more popular, but the league is far from perfect, and must push to remain at the cutting edge of sports and entertainment. In theScore's Revolutionizing the Game series, our NFL editors pitch their radical ideas for improving the NFL in four key areas.

• Rule changes
• Coaching
• Player safety
• Fan experience

Replace Pro Bowl game with skills competition

The Pro Bowl is almost a lost cause. Football is just simply not enjoyable to watch when players compete at half-speed.

Luckily, there's a solution, and the league has already found it. It just has to bring it back.

It's been seven seasons since the "Pro Bowl Skills Challenge" was last held in 2007. It's time to abolish the Pro Bowl game itself and replace it with a revamped skills competition.

The last version of the Skills Challenge included competitions to determine the fastest runner, best hands, most accurate quarterback, and strongest player. All of those are good to stay, but the best hands and accuracy competitions could be expanded into an obstacle course of sorts.

The addition of events where subjective skills are judged, like the NBA's Slam Dunk contest would give players a rare stage to showcase creativity. Who wouldn't enjoy a best catch competition with acrobats like Odell Beckham Jr. and DeAndre Hopkins putting on a show?

The NFL has a ton of supremely talented players that it wants to showcase, but an All-Star Game isn't the way to do it. Pro Bowlers show their in-game talents enough on a weekly basis during the season. It's time to finally make the Pro Bowl a must-watch event and get rid of it already. - Mitch Sanderson

Stream every game online for free

Television is dying. Millennials are cutting the cord at an astounding rate - or never subscribing to cable TV in the first place. The mobile phone, not the TV or even the computer, is the primary screen for most young people.

The NFL makes billions in revenue from its TV partners every year, but that river of cash will eventually run dry. To preserve football's place as America's true favorite pastime, the NFL must embrace the changing ways its audience consumes content and meet its fans where they are.

That means streaming every game online. And doing it for free, because fans will find a way to pirate the content if they're asked to pay.

Streaming games online will allow the NFL to keep all of the advertising revenue that currently goes to its TV partners. It will mean the end of network TV promos (no more "stay tuned after the game for '60 Minutes'") and the opportunity for much more sophisticated brand integration.

It will also greatly improve the experience for viewers. Fans can be given the ability to toggle between cameras (let's put one in each locker room, too) and multiple commentary tracks. Don't want to listen to Al and Chris? How about "homer" commentary featuring fans of your favorite team? Or commentary by former coaches breaking down the X's and O's of every play. Or just stadium sounds.

The digital future is inevitable. If the NFL embraces it, rather than dragging its feet, it will be a leader among its pro sports competitors domestically and abroad. - David P. Woods

Install a tablet for every stadium seat

The demand for information governs Sundays, especially with the exponential growth of fantasy football. Invested fans now face a new dilemma: either attend the game in person, or stay at home and be privy to live updates from all the games. Therefore, the NFL should install tablets in seats so fans don't have to make this often excruciating choice.

In a mobile-driven world, fans are already using their phones during games for myriad reasons. With tablets in their seats, they can quickly access the highlights they've been craving, and then go back to viewing the game at hand. Instead of incurring data charges or using erratic stadium WiFi, fans are now presented with the added value of an in-game tablet for all their extraneous needs.

With numerous games running at 1 and 4 p.m., fans need to scan through multiple games to keep tabs on what's going on within the league, and often their fantasy teams. By providing a tablet, replete with high-quality videos and updates provided by the NFL, fans can use breaks in play to catch up on what's going on, and then resume viewing the game they're attending.

Fans have never been presented with so many options to view a game, and providing an in-house tablet solves a problem for all parties involved. - Arun Srinivasan