The NFL Draft attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors, generates millions of dollars for local businesses and thrusts its host cities into a national spotlight.
It takes years of meticulous preparation, clear communication and strong partnerships to put on an event of that magnitude — but local leaders in recent host cities said they believe it’s worth the effort.
That work is getting underway in Pittsburgh , as the city is set to host the football draft in 2026.
Sam Krassenstein, Detroit’s chief of infrastructure, spent the past two years preparing the Motor City for a record-breaking NFL draft that attracted about 775,000 people.
“It’s a ton of work, but it’s also a lot of fun,” said Krassenstein, a native Pittsburgher who said he’s eager to return to his hometown to take in the 2026 draft.
What some football fans may not realize as they watch their teams choose top prospects is that it takes years of planning every element of the logistics, security, transit and guest experience to make the event run smoothly.
In Detroit, Krassenstein said, local leaders started with high-level plans — like how big of a footprint the event would require, what kind of buildout schedule they should follow for erecting the NFL’s temporary structures and how the city could best engage with community stakeholders — before moving into the nitty-gritty details.
Those ranged from making security preparations to helping vendors secure contracts, rerouting traffic to setting up portable bathrooms.
Beautification projects popped up around the area. Utility boxes were painted to resemble sports jerseys, banners were draped from city streetlights and new public art was installed in downtown Detroit.
The city hosted pre-draft events for months leading up to the main event, involving communities throughout Detroit and its suburbs.
Krassenstein said all those efforts will likely be beginning now in Pittsburgh.
‘Include everybody
Typically held in the end of April, the draft doesn’t just bring football’s top prospects — it also includes musical performances, local vendors and attractions meant to excite everyone in the city.
“The NFL has done an incredible job of turning what is ostensibly a business meeting into a festival for a city that’s focused on football, but becomes about food and music and the culture of a place,” said Christopher Moyer, a spokesperson for Visit Detroit, the city’s tourism agency.
All kinds of businesses can benefit from the event, he said. This year, about 60 local Detroit businesses got contracts directly with the NFL to provide everything from food to furniture rentals. Millions of dollars, he said, went to minority-owned companies, while hotels saw the highest occupancy rates they’ve seen this century.
Detroit75 Kitchen, a well-known Southwest Detroit sandwich shop, was among the local businesses to score an NFL contract for the draft weekend.
It was a “chaotic” experience, co-owner Ahmad Nassar said, but one that was “very rewarding.”
They sold 15,000 meals throughout the weekend, a major bump from the 5,000 to 7,000 they serve in a typical weekend, Nassar said.
They hired additional staff for the event — many of whom have stayed on even now that the draft is over — and hope to leverage the experience to pull in more large-scale events.
A key element of the event’s success was partnering with those local businesses and organizations, said Jessica Parker, Detroit’s deputy chief operation officer.
Her advice to Pittsburgh: “Don’t plan within the walls of City Hall. Make sure you include everybody.”
Divide by 10
While Detroit’s leaders are bullish on the draft, not everyone believes the rosy economic projections of hosting large sporting events.
University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson has long been critical of pro-business groups’ studies and projections of how much large sporting events bring into local economies.
He said chambers of commerce and other pro-business groups generally over-inflate the economic impacts of hosting the events.
Sanderson said his general rule of thumb is divide economic impact figures by 10, and that produces a more accurate picture of the economic boost for local economies.
For example, Visit Pittsburgh said the NFL draft would generate about $165 million. Sanderson’s equation would whittle that down to $16.5 million
“If you take any of these numbers from boosters, just take that number and move the decimal point one place to the left,” he said.
Sanderson said security is typically a massive cost for large public events, especially after 9/11.
Most of his experience is analyzing the Olympics — which he admits are much larger public events than the NFL draft — but he said security and other logistical expenses have become so large that cities have started to question the economic benefits of hosting the games.
This summer’s games in Paris will likely cost French taxpayers $3.25 billion, according to the Associated Press. Greece spent a reported $1.5 billion on security for the 2004 Athens games, and Sanderson said that cut into sharply into the economic benefit.
Sanderson co-authored a report for Boston while it was bidding on the 2024 Olympic games. He said that shortly after he submitted the report, which noted the high expenses and a cost-benefit analysis, the city withdrew its bid.
Made for TV
Sanderson said most of the money for sporting events, including the NFL draft, is made through television ads and broadcast rights. He said, generally, about 75% of NFL team revenue comes from TV.
More than 12 million viewers watched the first day coverage of the NFL draft this year in Detroit, a record.
Las Vegas hosted the draft in 2022, and Nevada officials said then that another benefit outside of immediate economic impact is the essentially free advertising it received. For four straight days, Las Vegas served as the backdrop to NFL draft television.
Lori Nelson-Kraft, an executive with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, told the Las Vegas Sun in 2022 that the draft “was a made-for-TV event, and the exposure, throughout the nation, was a huge marketing coup. We were able to really show off Las Vegas.”
When Kansas City hosted the draft, the city’s name was mentioned nearly 34,500 times through print, online, television and radio outlets in relation to the draft. That, according to Visit Kansas City, translated to an audience of nearly 43.5 billion people.
The draft is a great way for cities that don’t have the domed stadiums or reliably warm weather required to host the Super Bowl to get in on a marquee NFL event.
Mike Mulhall, senior vice president of business operations for the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, said the city doesn’t even bother bidding for the Super Bowl.
Cleveland, however, did land the draft in 2021. The city’s economic windfall was a fraction of what other cities enjoyed in prior years, because the event was pared down to meet covid-19 restrictions.
Still, the draft introduced — or reintroduced — audiences from around the country to Cleveland.
“There’s downtime between picks, so you’ll get really good footage of your skyline or assets or attractions around the city,” Mulhall said. “You can’t buy that kind of advertising.”
Security needs
That’s not to say hosting the draft comes without a cost. The Cleveland Browns, along with a collection of corporate partners, civic organizations and government entities, put up $4 million to cover the obligations requested by the NFL.
Host cities also have to take into account public safety needs.
Kansas City police dealt with only a few minor offenses when the city hosted last year.
Though general admission was free, a few trespassers were caught hopping a fence, according to Jacob Becchina, a Kansas City police spokesman. Police also busted a pair of thieves who stole merchandise overnight.
Securing the three-day event took around 1,000 officers, mostly from Kansas City. Pittsburgh police have about 750 officers, suggesting they’ll also have to lean on other departments.
Becchina said NFL personnel handled perimeter security with controlled entry points and metal detectors, while police dealt with crime and traffic.
“The security protocols that the NFL puts in its footprint are very, very strong,” Becchina said.
As construction of the draft stage got underway, the city shut down a couple of blocks near the site, according to Becchina. The closure area expanded as the first day neared.
This year, in Detroit, there were just two arrests reported during the draft, according to Moyer. A multi-jurisdictional team of over 1,000 public safety personnel — ranging from local police to the FBI — manned the event.
Leverage
Pittsburgh won’t be the only Pennsylvania city to host a draft in recent years. Philadelphia played host to about 250,000 fans in 2017, with record-setting crowds, nearly 20,000 hotel room nights and about $95 million in economic impact, said Larry Needle, executive director of PHL Sports, a division of the city’s convention and visitors bureau.
A draft, when hosted successfully, also can leverage longer-term impacts.
In Detroit, for example, city leaders used the draft as an opportunity to raise $1 million for its Living Legacy fund to support local nonprofits dedicated to youth sports and literacy.
In Nashville, the city is still using its successful 2019 draft — which attracted over 600,000 fans and about $132.8 million in direct visitor spending — to attract more large-scale events to the city, said Deana Ivey, president and CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.
“If you do it well,” Ivey said, “you can leverage it.”
