Green Bay Packers
GREEN BAY, WI (WSAU) — An online rumor about the Packers hosting the 2022 NFL first-year player Draft was quickly shot down by the team, who then doubled-down on their intent to host the event in the near future.
Packers COO Ed Policy said in no uncertain terms that the NFL has not awarded the 2022 Draft to anyone, then added that Green Bay is still aggressively pursuing either the 2022 or 2024 event.
Green Bay is hoping that upgrades to the Lambeau Field area, Titletown District, and Resch Expo will create the “infrastructure and corridor to serve as the epicenter for an event like this,” Policy told the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Three of the next four Drafts have been scheduled with this April’s event set for the Las Vegas Strip. The 2021 event will be held in Cleveland, and the 2023 draft heads to Kansas City.
The NFL Draft had been a standing tradition in New York City since the 1980s until the league decided to move the event to Chicago in 2015 and 2016. Then in 2017, the trend of moving the event to an outdoor theater atmosphere began when Philadelphia hosted the Draft on the steps of the city’s Museum of Art, also known as the Rocky Steps. The 2018 Draft was held in and around AT&T Stadium in suburban Dallas, Texas, and the 2019 Draft was held on Lower Broadway in Nashville.
President and CEO Mark Murphy released a statement Sunday afternoon saying “we are excited for the opportunity and believe the Greater Green Bay area is well-positioned to host such a remarkable event with the continued evolution of Lambeau Field, the successful launch of Titletown and the upcoming completion of the state-of-the-art Resch Expo.”
League estimates show some 600,000 people attended all three days of the 2019 Draft in Nashville, but that could double or triple-count those who attended multiple days of the three-day event. The most recent economic impact figures show the Dallas event generated well over $125 million for the area including $74 million in direct spending.
The league is said to be treating the draft and its economic impact as a second “Super Bowl,” allowing cold-weather or smaller markets that are traditionally left out of the rotation for the league’s championship game to host a traveling event that brings hundreds of thousands of fans in for multiple days.
The NFL recently ended the process of bidding for future Super Bowl host sites in favor of targeting markets and asking them to host future games, then negotiating the terms and slotting the markets based on their readiness to host such a large-scale event. Essentially narrowing the hosting honors to those with experience handling the event.
Other reports have indicated that Boston, MA could host the 2022 Draft. Green Bay’s application to host covers either the 2022 or 2024 event.
Should Green Bay secure a future draft, it would be the second NFL player selection meeting held in the state of Wisconsin. The 1940 NFL Draft was held at the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee. Back then there were only 10 teams in the NFL, and the draft was 22 rounds.
The initial reports that Green Bay would host the 2022 event were made by a Packers blogger on Twitter and picked up by the website Fansided. League and Packer officials were quick to shoot the information down as a rumor.
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