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A view of the stage during the Green Bay Packers’ selectioin during the first round of the NFL Draft at Lambeau Field on April 24, 2025, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Michael Reaves\/Getty Images\/TNS) <\/p>\nA view of the stage during the Green Bay Packers’ selectioin during the first round of the NFL Draft at Lambeau Field on April 24, 2025, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Michael Reaves\/Getty Images\/TNS) <\/p>\n
PITTSBURGH \u2014 Mel Kiper Jr. has gotten plenty wrong over the years. That\u2019s going to happen when you make thousands of NFL draft predictions over a nearly 50-year span.<\/p>\n
But he nailed the most important pick of his career.<\/p>\n
The longtime ESPN analyst knew the NFL draft could grow from meetings in hotel ballrooms to the colossal spectacle Pittsburgh will host April 23-25. He bet his career on the intersection between college football and the National Football League \u2014 the moment when pro teams vie to select the best young players from around the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really felt like this was going to be a massively huge event \u2026, \u201d Kiper said recently. \u201cI did believe when nobody else did.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had started putting out draft reports before the 1979 NFL draft, which was held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The event wasn\u2019t even televised at that point \u2014 the NFL didn\u2019t think people would be interested.<\/p>\n
ESPN convinced the league in time to air the 1980 draft, and they found an audience. The event graduated from hotels to a theater at Madison Square Garden in 1995 to Radio City Music Hall in 2006.<\/p>\n
After nine years at that iconic venue, the draft hit the road \u2014 first heading to Chicago in 2015 and 2016, and then on to several more cities. Nearly 800,000 people attended the 2024 NFL draft in Detroit. Last year\u2019s draft in Green Bay pulled in an estimated 600,000 fans.<\/p>\n
This April won\u2019t be the first time Pittsburgh has welcomed the NFL draft.<\/p>\n
The city hosted the 1948 edition, which took place in December 1947 at the Fort Pitt hotel. Many players chosen that year were also claimed by All-America Football Conference teams, so the 10 NFL franchises had to outbid teams in the rival league to hire their selections. There is little mention in newspaper reports of fans attending the event.<\/p>\n
The draft\u2019s return to Pittsburgh nearly 80 years later will look a little different.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh officials predict between 500,000 and 700,000 people will attend. It\u2019s expected to be the largest event the city has ever hosted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really vindication for me,\u201d Kiper said of the draft\u2019s exponential growth. \u201cBecause I\u2019d had people screaming, \u2018Why are you bringing Kiper on? Who the hell cares about the draft?\u2019 \u2026 All those haters became dinosaurs. They went away. They couldn\u2019t fight it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The godfather of the draft?<\/p>\n
The NFL draft\u2019s appeal seems obvious today.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach year, as the popularity of the sport grows both in this country and around the world, as college football continues to grow, this is obviously the intersection of those worlds,\u201d said Peter O\u2019Reilly, the NFL\u2019s executive vice president of club business, international and league events.<\/p>\n
The timing of the event helps. It\u2019s an otherwise quiet time in the football calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat else are you gonna do in April except be craving football, wanting to see highlights of these players, seeing what players are going to impact my football team?\u201d Kiper said.<\/p>\n
Evidently, the league took some convincing.<\/p>\n
In its fledgling years, ESPN \u2014 which was launched in 1979 \u2014 wanted to establish a presence in football by televising the draft. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle wasn\u2019t sure why people would want to watch names being read in a ballroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to credit ESPN big time for saying, \u2018Hey, we want to do this. We can do it right. We can make this thing work. The fans are going to love it. Trust us,\u2019\u201d Kiper said.<\/p>\n
Once ESPN showed that the draft could be compelling television, he said, the league \u201ckind of jumped on that bandwagon.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Kiper didn\u2019t work at the network when it first televised the draft in 1980, he had begun issuing his own draft reports as a teenager working out of his parents\u2019 basement in the Baltimore area. He saw immediate returns. Some subscribers \u2014 both NFL and college football fans \u2014 told him they looked forward to the draft more than they did the start of the season.<\/p>\n
Within about five years, ESPN hired him to work the 1984 draft.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an emotional component to the draft\u2019s popularity. Only one team can win the Super Bowl each year, leaving fans of the other 31 franchises disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe draft represents hope to these fanbases,\u201d said Louis Riddick, an NFL and college football analyst for ESPN and a Pitt alum. \u201cSo they\u2019re all in. They\u2019re all in on, \u2018Let me see what my team is doing so that next year, maybe we\u2019re the ones hoisting the Lombardi.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Riddick credits the draft for launching his career at ESPN. And he credits his colleague for making that possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere would be no NFL draft as presently constituted if it weren\u2019t for Mel Kiper,\u201d Riddick said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Like something from Woodstock\u2019<\/p>\n
The draft was held in New York from 1965 to 2014. O\u2019Reilly was involved in the NFL\u2019s decision to take it on the road.<\/p>\n
By then, league officials knew the event was popular. More than 45 million people watched the 2014 NFL draft, and fans would wait in line outside Radio City Music Hall the day before to nab a free ticket to the 6,000-seat venue.<\/p>\n
But officials weren\u2019t sure what type of reception they would receive for the 2015 draft in Chicago.<\/p>\n
The day before, O\u2019Reilly remembered looking out the window of his hotel room and seeing fans in jerseys of many NFL teams, not just the Bears, peering over the fence in Grant Park to check out the draft setup.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had that sense that the passion of NFL fans and bringing this on the road, it was going to work,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said.<\/p>\n
About 200,000 people attended the two drafts held in Chicago. It just kept growing from there.<\/p>\n
The NFL brought the event back to its birthplace in 2017 \u2014 Philadelphia. The first draft had been held in that city\u2019s Ritz-Carlton Hotel in 1936.<\/p>\n
The modern version involved setting up an indoor\/outdoor theater outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, featuring the \u201cRocky Steps\u201d made famous by the Sylvester Stallone movies. Fans filled Benjamin Franklin Parkway in front of the venue.<\/p>\n
Riddick recalled hordes of people as far as the eye could see. Eagles fans went \u201cberserk\u201d each time their team was on the clock. They waved green glow sticks in the air and sang, \u201cFly, Eagles Fly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was absolutely nuts in Philly \u2026 ,\u201d Riddick said. \u201cIt looked like something from Woodstock.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2019 draft in Nashville drew 600,000 people, who packed Lower Broadway in a scene reminiscent of New Year\u2019s Eve in Times Square.<\/p>\n
The COVID-19 pandemic banished the 2020 draft to Commissioner Roger Goodell\u2019s basement and limited attendance in Cleveland the next year.<\/p>\n
But the energy picked back up in 2022 (Las Vegas) and 2023 (Kansas City) before exploding in Detroit.<\/p>\n
The 2024 NFL draft drew 775,000 people to downtown Motor City. The \u201csea of humanity in Honolulu Blue\u201d is one of the indelible images of the draft for O\u2019Reilly.<\/p>\n
In the much smaller city of Green Bay the following year, the draft still delivered 600,000 attendees. It drew the second-highest TV and streaming audience in the event\u2019s history, with an average of 7.5 million viewers tuning in each day.<\/p>\n
Growth of the draft is not just reflected during those three days in April. It\u2019s become a year-round obsession.<\/p>\n
Kiper helped popularize mock drafts, which now flood the internet. There are podcasts, outlets and many media members like him whose sole focus is the draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s writing about the draft, writing about prospects, writing about football,\u201d Kiper said. \u201cJust to see the internet surge in terms of how many people are putting up mock drafts and rankings and ratings on every position and every player, is really gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s Pittsburgh\u2019s turn<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly said the NFL wants the host city to be the \u201cstar\u201d of the draft \u2014 building the event around an iconic location or central hub in the city and surrounding it with a free festival environment.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s edition will be split across the North Shore and Point State Park. The draft theater will be set up outside Acrisure Stadium, with the crowd spilling out in the parking lots around the stadium.<\/p>\n
Point State Park will host the draft Experience, a fan festival featuring interactive activities, exhibits and more.<\/p>\n
The Roberto Clemente Bridge and Gateway Clipper Fleet will link the two sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew the rivers would be a character in the draft story, with activations on both sides,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said.<\/p>\n
The crowd will be a character, as well. The draft and hundreds of thousands of fans are expected to transform Downtown and the North Shore into a living celebration of football.<\/p>\n
Tens of millions more will watch at home, as the NFL media apparatus descends on Pittsburgh. The entire event will be broadcast on multiple channels simultaneously. ESPN will provide several hours of live coverage before each day of the draft begins.<\/p>\n
Riddick said he believes the atmosphere will be \u201csecond-to-none.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPittsburgh\u2019s the ultimate football town,\u201d Riddick said, \u201cso I expect us to break records there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A view of the stage during the Green Bay Packers’ selectioin during the first round of the NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[265,7,6,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-836087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116299076889225543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}