GREEN BAY, Wis. — Bringing the NFL draft to the league’s smallest market was supposed to mean a smaller crowd.

Green Bay Packers fans had other ideas.

Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy said last week the forecast was for a total attendance of 250,000 for all three days.

NFL officials announced Saturday that the total attendance ended up at 600,000, more than doubling that forecast.

“Green Bay is kind of that destination where everybody wants to come and see Lambeau Field,” Steven Chowanec of Osseo, Wisconsin, said Saturday as he waited for the final four rounds to begin.

Fans watch during the third day of the NFL football draft, Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)

The total attendance is measured by adding the crowd sizes for each of the draft’s three days, so a person who attended all three days would be counted three separate times.

The official attendance for night one of the draft was 205,000 people, according to the NFL.

Attendance on Friday for rounds two and three was 175,000, ESPN’s Adam Schefter said, even though it had rained for much of the afternoon. That gave Green Bay a two-day total of 380,000, per a league official.

The estimated crowd was 220,000 for the final four rounds on a picture-perfect Saturday, many of them staying all the way until the end and then sticking around for a Brad Paisley concert.

That now puts Green Bay in third place for the highest-ever draft attendance, behind Detroit and Nashville. Detroit touted a total attendance of 775,000 from the 2024 draft while Nashville hosted 600,000 in 2019.

The city itself is home to 107,395 residents, according to Green Bay’s website, making the attendance that much more notable.

Fans crowd around the draft stage during the second round of the NFL football draft, Friday, April 25, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)

“I’m happy Green Bay turned out,” said Paul Cegelski, who lives in Green Bay and is a Packers season-ticket holder and shareholder for the NFL’s only publicly owned franchise. “I’m so glad we weren’t a black eye.”

Far from it.

Although Packers fans made up a large contingent of the crowd, the fans of other teams who made the trip to Green Bay offered rave reviews.

Pati Cream of Houston, who won a league-sponsored contest to determine the Texans’ 2024 fan of the year, said she already had attended a handful of previous NFL drafts before making the trip to Green Bay this week. She marveled at how this relatively small community handled all the logistical challenges that come from hosting such a major event.

“We were a little fearful because it’s a smaller venue, but it’s been amazing,” Cream said. “The Packers fans are always so welcoming and great. Getting around has been really easy. Everybody’s been very hospitable. It’s been an absolute blast.”

Here’s a look at how total attendance numbers stack up from 2015 on — since the draft was moved from Radio City Music Hall in New York City: 

The draft was not public in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19.