How the NFL’s player draft became a multi-million dollar live TV spectacle

The consensus going into this year’s NFL Draft is that this is not a bumper year for talent coming out of the college game. You have only one highly regarded quarterback, Fernando Mendoza from Indiana, who has been a certainty as the No1 pick for months since winning the Heisman Trophy, awarded to the best player in college football. Then there is a potentially generational talent at running back out of Notre Dame in Jeremiyah Love. Some promising pass rushers (Arvell Reese, David Bailey) and offensive tackles (Francis Mauigoa), and a very good safety in Ohio State’s Caleb Downs.

While Love and Downs are exciting prospects, a sure sign of a down year is the possibility that a running back might be drafted within the top five picks for the first time in eight years – Saquon Barkley was the last, and has more than lived up to that billing – or perhaps the first safety in the top five since Eric Berry in 2010. More trades are expected this year than in most others because teams aren’t entirely sure about what they may be able to get in the middle or late in the first round.

And yet, in the grand scheme of what the NFL Draft has become, it does not matter that the class of 2026 may not be the most talented group. Because the event, starting on Thursday, will be attended by an army of fans in Pittsburgh, a three-day bonanza generating tens of millions of dollars for local businesses. More than 200,000 fans will be there across three days to celebrate … names being read out on a stage. How did this happen?

There is the straightforward logistical answer, and the big picture answer. Back in 2014, the Draft had to be moved from its usual timeframe of late April to the middle of May, due to a scheduling conflict at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. That delay led to suggestions that the Draft could be moved away from New York for the first time since 1965, which the NFL duly did, taking it to Chicago the following year.

Not only was the Draft in a new city, it had a different format, held outside for the first time in close to 50 years. The first three rounds were not even announced in the same spot as “Draft Town”, where the fans showed up in huge numbers in Chicago to watch the picks be revealed on a big screen. A monster was born. All because the dates of the 2014 Easter Show back at Radio City Music Hall clashed with the NFL’s annual event.

Since then the Draft has gone to Philadelphia, with the picks announced on the Rocky Steps, Dallas inside the Cowboys’ stadium, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Detroit and Green Bay. Cities are now bidding to host two NFL events every year: the Super Bowl, and the Draft. Washington DC has already been lined up as next year's venue, on the National Mall in front of the US Capitol building. Which is a long way removed from hosting the Draft in a New York ballroom.

Spectators now fly in from all over the country simply to listen to the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announce which player teams have selected, and then potentially see that player walk out on stage to give Goodell a hug, before posing with their new team’s cap. That’s it. If the player even attends in the first place.

Being at the Draft is not obligatory. Players often prefer to stay at home with their families, with television footage then cutting to their living rooms across the country to capture the moment those players’ lives change for ever. Mendoza, who the Las Vegas Raiders will select first overall barring an unexpected trade, will not be in Pittsburgh, opting to stay home with his mother, who has multiple sclerosis. Sure, ESPN and the NFL Network would prefer to have Goodell greeting Mendoza warmly on stage, a key moment in the broadcast, but the Raiders fans who make the trip to Pittsburgh will have a blast regardless, waiting like their rival supporters for one thing: to land their next superstar.

The sheer size and simplicity of this spectacle is where the NFL separates itself from all the other major sports in the world. Last year, the first night of the Draft drew an average of 13.6 million viewers in the United States. That figure was higher than the peak audience for the NBA Finals, which was about 12 million. The Draft is an exercise so compelling that they even made a film about it, with Draft Day starring Kevin Costner as fictional Cleveland Browns general manager Sonny Weaver Jr, agonising over who to select with the No1 pick. The film just about made a profit.

Even if the initial move away from Radio City was a happy accident, the resulting commercial capitalisation of this event, turning it into a touring circus around the US, has been stunning. The 2025 Draft in Detroit generated $213m (£157m). No other sport can compete with that, and the NFL is a master of maximising minor events.

The beginning of free agency, effectively the NFL’s transfer window, now comes with more hype than ever. The NFL Combine, where prospective rookies perform in a number of drills in front of scouts from each team, is a televised event. Teams now put extraordinary effort into coming up with a creative way to announce their schedules, with the Los Angeles Chargers last year releasing a five-minute Minecraft-themed video.

It is the kind of grandiose activity you would expect from the professional league with the highest revenue in the world, with plans to host international fixtures everywhere including in Australia for the first time this year. The NFL is a juggernaut. But the success of taking the Draft on the road has been a lucky bonus.

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