Because it’s their offseason, the NFL has been mostly unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, multiple teams have changed plans ranging from not attending pro days to having people work remotely but the NFL hasn’t had to postpone any games like almost every other league.
The big offseason NFL event is the Draft and that’s set to take place on the Las Vegas Strip. Now that the Draft has become a huge fan event on its own, hundreds of thousands of people are set to be in Vegas just for the festivities that it seems to be the complete opposite of what’s going on in the world.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport revealed that the league is looking into contingency plans if the Draft needs to be altered. The actual selection of the players is going to happen but all the pomp and circumstance surrounding it may not. One option is that the Draft would be conducted by conference call.
From @NFLTotalAccess: The 2020 NFL Draft is still on, and will be on, but contingency plans include all options and solutions. pic.twitter.com/9IfjudlJ0C
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 13, 2020
Conducting the Draft by conference call would be massively old school. Before it became the television event that it is, it was essentially done out of a hotel conference room with reps from each team on the phone with their team to submit the pick.
If worse comes to worse and the NFL strips the fan event things, it’s still going to be an event people will tune into. It’ll be different and it might not be as entertaining but fans will still want to find out who is getting drafted to their favorite team so as long as that’s the case, the NFL will be fine.
