The first ever NFL Draft took place in 1936 in Philadelphia. The next year the first of now 57 NFL Drafts took place in New York City. NYC has hosted more NFL Drafts than every other city combined, but hasn’t hosted since 2014.
From 1965-2014 every single NFL Draft took place in New York City, with every draft between 2006 and 2014 being hosted by Radio City Music Hall. Since 2014, Chicago hosted the 2015 and 2016 NFL Drafts and the 2017 edition will take place in Philadelphia from April 27th to 29th.
The 2018 NFL Draft location hasn’t been announced yet, but it won’t be in New York City according to the New York Daily News, which means the soonest the Draft could return to NYC would be in 2019, and NYC wants it. Badly.
The NY Daily News’ league sources told them New York “has expressed interest in hosting in 2019 and beyond.”
“There is no question that New York provides a level of media exposure that would be hard to replicate elsewhere,” a league source once told the NY Daily News. “At the same time, there is a question whether Radio City can remain a long-term host for the event because they are developing new shows and new things all the time.”
Here’s the other information reported by the Daily News:
- The NFL doesn’t have a timetable for when it will announce the host of the 2018 draft, but New York didn’t bid.
- New York has expressed interest in bidding for the 2019 Draft, but so have other cities. Radio City would be the likely venue if NYC wins the rights, but it wouldn’t be permanent, as the NFL wants to continue to rotate the host city.
- Other cities who have contacted the league about hosting are Philadelphia, Canton, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Green Bay, Jacksonville, Kansas City, and Los Angeles.
- With two teams now in the City of Angels, it wouldn’t be surprising if LA gets one after their stadium complex is done.
- The NFL’s 100th Anniversary is in 2020, and the NY Daily News notes that at the same time as mentioning Canton. The 100th anniversary and the Hall of Fame makes too much sense and would be so cool.
- Jerry Jones is building a massive new Cowboys complex in Dallas and that could be good enough to land the Draft.
Whether New York City gets it in the future or not may not matter when it comes to one big draft tradition: booing Roger Goodell. Last year in Chicago, fans booed Goodell seemingly every day. After the third consecutive day of heckling, the Commissioner practically encouraged it.
“Come on, bring it on,” he said. “There you go. There you go.”
Truly, he’s bringing together a divided nation, as everyone realizes they’re not so different after all: they all hate Roger Goodell.
