People travel through the 2025 NFL Draft campus on the event's final day on April 26, 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The highly-anticipated release of the economic impact study for the 2025 NFL Draft puts a bow on the biggest event our area has ever hosted.
Green Bay and the surrounding region hope to use this data to continue to capitalize off of the event.
The study showed negative impressions of Green Bay were changed when the city hosted the 2025 NFL Draft.
In a survey, first time visitors said their thoughts of Green Bay before attending the draft included that it was cold, small, slow-paced and boring. After they visited, their sentiment changed to Green Bay is amazing, awesome, welcoming and friendly.
Of course, preconceived notions of us enjoying beer and cheese held true.
“We’ve been sending messages to people: If you enjoyed the draft, why not come to [Packers] training camp? So we’re already starting to do that,” said Brad Toll, president and CEO of Discover Green Bay.
Those messages are going out courtesy of geo-fencing — the devices that were used here during the draft.
The survey of attendees shows more than 83% of first time Green Bay visitors said their experience exceeded expectations — two-thirds saying greatly exceeded.
However, first time visitors only made up about 13% of the draft crowd, according to that survey of about 2,000 people.
Of the repeat visitors, over 83% say they already visit Green Bay annually.
There is still room to grow tourism. 31% of those surveyed came from outside Wisconsin.
Plus, the TV crowd was the second-most ever for an NFL Draft, behind only the one held during COVID — putting Green Bay on the radar for tens of millions of people across the world.
“The challenge now is connecting with all those people, with our budget, to try and turn that into another trip — or their first trip to Green Bay,” said Toll.
“Showing that you can host an event like the NFL Draft really helps set you apart in showing you can also host bigger and bigger events, and welcoming even more people into the area,” said Makenzie Wolters of Visit KC, the tourism agency for Kansas City, which hosted the draft two years ago.
Wolters says while it would be difficult to track whether tourists are a product of hosting the draft, it has certainly helped get other events to the area, like hosting 2026 World Cup games.
“Anecdotally, we do see the impact of that here in Kansas City, in that our city has continued to grow and grow,” said Wolters. “We’ve seen more people move here, more people visit here. Every year, we’re breaking records in terms of annual visitorship.”
The Green Bay area is hoping for the same. Based on draft feedback, optimism is high.
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