GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – The NFL will not be back in town until late March after wrapping up a multi-day site visit to Titletown early last week. Leaders from the league enjoyed their time in the city and were impressed by what they saw.
“Usually the March site visit for a draft is the final planning trip prior to us starting load-in, which is starting March 29,” NFL Senior Director of Events Nicki Ewell said.
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Ewell says the Packers’ success leads to the league’s success, both in terms of the draft and also how the Packers perform on the field.
“When the Packers are doing well, it’s always good for the National Football League too when it comes to their records,” she said. “Definitely, it’s a mecca for a lot of fans.”
From flag football clinics to photo ops to the Vince Lombardi Trophy itself, Ewell says there is no shortage of activities the league and its partners are planning to keep fans engaged.
“We have interactive games, we have sponsors with giveaways, we have NFL shop merchandise, we have a Wisconsin supper club food experience with local vendors, and they keep 100% of the revenue they make,” Ewell said. “It’s really meant to be a celebration of football, and also a celebration of our hosts.”
In Ewell’s eyes, there is no greater free fan experience anywhere in the world, across sport, entertainment, or any other genre.
“A hundred percent, I’ll put my name on that,” she said. “It is the most valuable free event in the world, honestly. It is really important to us and to our commissioner to have accessible events. Not everyone is lucky enough to go to an NFL game.”
The NFL’s recipe for a successful draft has been similar over the last decade, after moving the event out of New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and taking it on the road to Chicago in 2015.
“Our model is always to build this amazing 300-foot stage that takes two to three weeks to build, because that’s really the centerpiece, and then you build this festival around it that’s really a celebration of football and family and food,” Ewell said. “We know now that the real hub of all the entertainment and excitement is around the theater. So we took that piece and moved it out of existing brick-and-mortar theaters or inside venue locations. We moved it outside because that’s really the hub of all the energy.”
It takes an immense level of effort, one that the league is not doing for a quick return on revenue but rather as an opportunity to gain more fans, to put the draft together during what would otherwise be the staff’s offseason.
“We turn quickly. After the Super Bowl, we have the Combine, and then we have the Draft. So we don’t ever have an offseason anymore,” Ewell said. “The level of production, collaboration, and working with key stakeholders at a Super Bowl is almost the same level as the draft because it has become this huge machine. So we’re really proud of the work that we’re doing.”
There was one driving force, Ewell says, that pushed the draft onto the road.
“The commissioner,” she said. “He wanted to make sure that the cities that couldn’t host a Super Bowl and the clubs that are so dedicated to the league had the chance to host a mega NFL event.”
With Pittsburgh hosting the draft in 2026, Washington, D.C. has been a city that has reportedly been eyeing the event for 2027.
Ewell says an announcement on the next draft host will be made in a couple of months, but there are still multiple cities left in the running. She says a return to past host cities is also not being ruled out.
“It’s complicated work. So a lot of cities vying for it, we’re certainly talking to a number of future cities as well, and they’re looking at Green Bay and seeing how they can outdo it,” Ewell said. “The model that we have, where the experience and the festival is co-located with the theater, is the ideal model and we didn’t have that in every market. In Chicago, we were separated. In Nashville, we were separated. So it’s a little bit different. I think there are a couple of cities we’d go back to.”
Ewell says that no potential host city is immune to challenges, and that Green Bay’s primary obstacle was lodging.
“The biggest challenge in a smaller market like Green Bay is hotels,” she said. “Flights will be an issue, but we have great properties, hotel options around the state really. People aren’t afraid to drive in Wisconsin or the Midwest in general.”
Not only are the cities competitive when it comes to the bidding process, but there is an internal push for the league to continue to outdo itself each year in addition to its partners.
“We get excited about outdoing ourselves too,” Ewell said. “And we have a lot of vendors and production partners that are an extension of our events team, our broadcast team, our security team, our sponsorship team. They’re an extension of that, and they come up with great ideas too.”
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The NFL’s goal is not just to be a leader of American sports as it is, but to be the world’s greatest sporting entity, and hopes that all individuals and groups that work for and with it can help it achieve that lofty recognition.
“We know we’re competing with these global events like the Olympics, or Formula 1, or the World Cup that’s coming soon,” Ewell said. “We want to make sure we’re outdoing that. We have a lot of key vendors that put pride in everything that they do and try to outdo each other.”
