This year's Draft in Dallas seemed to register with fans more than past iterations in ManhattanGETTY IMAGES
This year's NFL Draft at AT&T Stadium was the first "held inside an NFL stadium, and the atmosphere -- especially during the first round -- was fantastic," according to Lindsay Jones of USA TODAY. The league will "decide at the owners meetings in May where the next two drafts will be staged." What has been learned from the past two years in Philadelphia and North Texas is that the host city has the "opportunity to show off its local flavor." Fans would "love to see the event" at the Pro Football HOF or on a "snowy April day in Denver" (USA TODAY, 4/30). In N.Y., Ken Belson noted this year's Draft makes one "forget that just a few years ago, the three-day celebration of college football ... was held in Manhattan at the rather dowdy Radio City Music Hall." The event "barely registered with the locals." The NFL has "deployed its tried-and-true strategy of dangling the supposed glamour of pro football in front of cities eager to cozy up to the nation’s biggest sports league." In return, the league has "received subsidies, police escorts and city permits." The NFL "doesn’t charge fans to attend, but sponsors line up to have their brands plastered on the event." A supersized draft costs millions of dollars to produce, but NFL Senior VP/Events Peter O’Reilly said that it now "essentially breaks even." Now that the Draft is "fully unshackled from New York, where it took place for nearly a half-century, the NFL intends to continue taking its show on the road" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/29). In Tampa, Traci Johnson wrote under the header, "Biggest Bust Of The Draft? That'd Be The Bucs' Parrot, Matey" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 4/29).
