GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – At the end of this month, a Green Bay area delegation will be heading to Detroit to experience this year’s NFL Draft.
From tourism and marketing to safety and security, the goal is to learn best practices before the big event comes to Titletown next year.
At the end of this month, a Green Bay area delegation will be heading to Detroit to experience this year’s NFL Draft. (WLUK)
Detroit is hosting the NFL Draft April 25 through the 27.
The NFL Draft is expected to be the largest event Green Bay has ever hosted, so plenty of people want to get a first-hand look at how it is done.
Discover Green Bay CEO Brad Toll first went to the 2017 Draft in Philadelphia to see if Green Bay would be able to handle the event. He’s been seeing how other cities do as host ever since.
“Each one we’ve found is laid out a little bit differently,” said Toll. “Some of the dynamics change from year to year.”
Toll will be going to Detroit at the end of the month. Various members of the 35 committees preparing for the draft to be here will also be going, along with officials from the Packers, the city of Green Bay, village of Ashwaubenon, Brown County, and PMI Entertainment Group, which oversees the Resch Complex.
“Conversations with our colleagues in Detroit will be very helpful,” said Toll. “We’ve had them with Kansas City and Nashville, Cleveland. So, we’ll be on the clock very soon.”
“I’ve never been to a draft before, so I’m not sure exactly what I will be looking at, but generally speaking, just to try to take in the operation as a whole,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich.
Genrich will be going on behalf of the city, along with the police and fire chiefs.
“Just to kind of get an understanding both of the operation with regard specifically to the draft, but also the impact on the community at large and how you can kind of leverage the event to really benefit the community as a whole and local businesses.”
The draft campus in Green Bay will consist of Lambeau Field, Titletown, and the Resch Complex. 312,000 fans attended last year’s NFL Draft in Kansas City throughout the three days with 54 million people watching it on TV.
“But what kinds of things can we do in downtown De Pere?” said Toll. “In downtown Green Bay? How can we coordinate all these things so we’re able to spread that spend out throughout the community?”
The draft is expected to have a $94 million economic impact statewide, with $20 million of that being in Green Bay.
There’s three weeks yet until the draft in Detroit, but work is already well underway to build the draft stage. It’s being built in Campus Martius Park, which is a few blocks from Ford Field in the city’s downtown.
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