What hosting the NFL Draft (biggest fan event in KC history) will mean for Kansas City
The Chiefs aren’t the only Kansas City attraction at Super Bowl LVII. The city and NFL on Friday rolled out renderings for the NFL Draft that will take place at KC’s Union Station in April.
What kind of scale are we talking about here?
Think in terms of the fandom that spilled throughout that area of Kansas City at the end of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl and Royals’ World Series victory parades. One big difference this time: The crowd for the April 27-29 NFL Draft figures to be more like what you might find at a neutral-site game than a Chiefs home game, with fans from across the NFL cheering the selections of their respective teams.
“It’s a parade all day long for three days,” said Kathy Nelson, president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission and VisitKC.
One that will draw some 300,000 attendees, Nelson estimates, and could have an economic impact of up to $154 million.
“We keep talking about the World Cup,” Chiefs president Mark Donovan said; KC will host World Cup games in 2026. “The draft will be the largest event the city has ever hosted.”
Many visitors from outside the region are expected to fly or drive in for the draft. The hometown Chiefs fans will no doubt be out in force, but so too will fans of many other NFL teams.
“People are going to see how big Chiefs Kingdom is because people are going to come from all edges of the Kingdom and beyond,” Donovan said. “This is a league event. It’s bigger than people think or realize. ... There will be fans from all over that will come, from every team.”
The event will cover about 3 million square feet, making it the largest NFL Draft footprint in history, and the Liberty Memorial mall will be used for the draftees’ red carpet entrance. Then they’ll be taken down to Union Station to a stage that will take four weeks to set up.
Inside Union Station, the draftees will wait in a “green room” to hear their names called.
Union Station will be closed to the public the week of the draft. The area south of Liberty Memorial will be used for a fan experience featuring interactive activities. It will remain open throughout the draft. And live on-stage music is planned for at least two of the three nights, Nelson said.
“You’ll feel and experience Kansas City throughout the draft,” she said.
There is no admission charge for the draft or related events and exhibits.
The NFL staged its first draft in 1936. The event, conducted in hotel meeting rooms, and was held mostly in New York and Philadelphia until 1965. It spent the next five decades in New York, moving from hotels to theaters as it grew in popularity.
It left New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 2015 and has since played in various cities to thousands of fans. in 2019, some 600,000 attended the draft in Nashville. Last year, the draft was held in Las Vegas.
As they were last season, the Chiefs expect to be busy during this year’s draft. They had 10 selections in the 2022 draft and nine of them have played in the playoffs. Entering Sunday’s Super Bowl LVII in Arizona, the Chiefs have 11 draft picks in this year’s draft.
The Chiefs will conduct draft business at their One Arrowhead Drive practice facility in typical fashion.
“As far as I know it won’t change anything for us,” said Chiefs general manager Brett Veach. “I joked with Mark (that) it would be good to uproot our draft, put it downtown, put some cameras in there while we’re making our picks.”
That won’t happen, but having the draft in Kansas City will certainly come with a spotlight. As many as 15.6 million viewers have watched the first night of the draft on ABC, ESPN and the NFL Network.
Kansas City’s winning bid was announced in 2019. Untile then, there were no assurances that this event would ever come to the Heartland.
“It’s real easy to take this to Las Vegas or L.A. and to big cities, but we fought really hard to say these are the type of events you have to bring to cities like this that are so supportive of our teams year in and year out,” Donovan said. “It’s a celebration of Kansas City. It’s an opportunity to be on the national stage and show off.”