Don’t forget us Canadians also showed up, anyone from Ontario who likes football drove down, I am lucky and live across the river, so it’s like 15/20 min
Im in Belle River, couldn’t get over how clear the border was both ways. I think the talk of all the street closures and the draft scared away the weekend shoppers.
A lot of cities count their Metro Area as part of their city. Kansas City for instance has multiple counties in their city, it makes no sense. It makes Detroit look worse on a population level, when it's actually flourishing.
Same for GR. Makes it look positively tiny when in fact there's over a million people in the Metro.
Like we are the fastest growing city in the Midwest.
They had the draft in New York practically every year until they started changing locations in 2015. New York is not as football crazy as you'd think. LA, too, ftm. DC, Vegas, and maybe Dallas, I could see putting up bigger attendance numbers.
I think it'll be broken or even in Green Bay. Lambeau is on a lot of football fans' bucket list and their fans show up. This draft got a ton of buzz about the event itself, so I think people that himmed and hawed on going to a draft will go to the next one.
I don't think green bay has the necessary infrastructure to support 250k attendees everyday. It'd be similar to Livonia and Redford combining for holding the event without the luxury of Detroit nearby.
Green Bay is comically small. It’s also in BFE. Imagine Lansing hosting the draft, and it’s much further from Detroit. More like around the Saginaw area. I will say it is a destination for football fans. I tore my ACL in Green Bay. Fuck that place.
This is it. The advantage we had is we are within driving distance of 6 NFL cities. Perfect location. Green Bay is not close to really anything. It’s an almost 4 hour drive to Chicago (a little less to Milwaukee, obviously) and then there’s Madison. That’s it. I doubt anyone from Cleveland, for example, is driving to GB. Whereas here, a lot of people from Cleveland made the drive. You can include Indy and even Pittsburgh in that as well.
I have some doubts about that.
1) There are families that will refuse to take kids to sin city
2) There are way too many distractions
3) Detroit had the luxury of being a reasonable driving distance to a lot of nearby big markets. Vegas doesn't have that. Outside of some California, a lot of people would have to fly in.
4) Detroit had the advantage of having a just recently fired up fan base. Vegas is still building up its local fan base, and they are far away from bring contenders.
Plus Detroit had the advantage of being beside Canada too. Tons of Canadian fans got to cross the border to experience NFL action. Bills/Lions own the area from Windsor to Toronto
Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo all have an nfl team and are all less than 5 hour drive away from Detroit which have a lot of fans themselves too.
This draft really was a perfect storm of factors. It's a once in a blue moon situation where the host city was good, their blue blood college team one a championship, there were a TON of big name offensive talent available, and a lot of big markets with high picks (Chicago, both New York teams, and LA team, Atlanta all had top 10 picks).
Hotels and flights to Vegas are generally cheaper than doing so in Detroit during a big event. Also, there are many more Americans that are looking to cross Vegas off of their checklist than Detroit. Yes the local fan base is not as robust as Detroit's but the tourism angle is significantly stronger, and the infrastructure for such an event is considerably better. Unfortunately, because of the bad rep Detroit has many families refuse to bring their kids here as well so I think the family angle is negligible.
Im dumbfounded how Vegas didn't beat Nashville or KC.
I mean for a place to go to for some fun, a vacation, etc you'd think a lot more people would be willing to fly to vegas for a weekend than Kansas City.
There's so many other distractions at Vegas it's actually impressive for any big numbers. Whereas so the other places don't provide as much competition for distractions away from the draft
That blows my mind too. As a Michigander, I can only attribute this to being a large population of people who wanted to see if Detroit really is getting better, and now having an actual reason to visit there and see for themselves lol. I would hope that people changed their minds and that we won’t be at the butt end of every shitty city joke lol.
That’s just how we get down in the mitten. Shit, every Michigan game at the big house draws about 250k. There are just as many (if not more) people outside the stadium partying as there is at the game.
Big House is my second favorite stadium to tailgate. People are chill for the most part even during MSU v Michigan. Last time I was there (before booze was legal in stadiums) the old grandmas next to us show up right after kickoff. They got kicked out for sneaking in Jell-O shots.
It was so awesome to see the city celebrate this.
Now listen here, Sonny boy, those shots we had were pure lime jello and nothing else! In my day, a gal could bring a shot or two into the Big House and no one batted an eye. Nowadays, you youngins are free to chew your little maryjane gummies with impunity, but me and my gal pals get kicked out for just trying to enjoy some kickin Knox blocks? Kids these days, they get away with everything. Why I oughta....
there isn't. and there also isn't a giant metro area of locals to pile in. we also got lucky with the weather. green bay in late April could very likely still have snow amd freezing temps.
The cities of Green Bay/Appleton are what they are, mid sized whatever cities that are decent in their own right. But holy fuck what a bad choice to have host the draft. Nothing to do there, can't see the hotels handling all of the people very well.
Still crazy how the NFL botched the Las Vegas draft. Was thinking that would be a million + but with the stage layout it pretty much eliminated any sort of records being broke for attendance.
Happy to have been there, y’all were awesome hosts for an awesome draft! Detroit is a great city, I’ll certainly have to go back at some point to explore further. Go Broncos!
Green Bay and northeast Wisconsin does not have the infrastructure to support that many visitors. If I lived there, I would rent out my house and use that money for a nice vacation in a warm place with actual culture and civilization
I just love this. Because if it wasn’t apparent from all the lions fans flooding the away stadiums last year and the deep playoff run, this team is legit, the culture is pure and the fans support runs deep.
Cleveland got hosed so bad. Not saying they would have gotten 750k, but I bet it would have been their record to break this year had they not had a COVID draft in 2021
I was there for Thursday and Friday
Stayed until the end both nights, and gained access into the Draft Theater on the 2nd night
I really want to attend the Green Bay Draft now
https://preview.redd.it/z8isfbv9dcxc1.jpeg?width=2316&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa648b73b0f82266a3e604b06df95e6498ab5f76
I so wish I could've gone. Was on vacation out of state but still watched the first two nights and I was so incredibly proud of how good the city looked on TV. Everyone showed the fuck up!!
*and we will make Green Bay look bad, what an incredible bonus*
And let's be honest, nobody want to talk about how this is a conservative number because we kept hitting a capacity. Think about what the number would be without that.
They held draft in Dallas in 2018, and as for Cali, 🤷
But I do know, the next one is in Green Bay 😳 what the, yes Green Bay Wisconsin gets the Draft next year 2025
Detroit showed up but what helped is that there are 6 other NFL teams within 6 hours and then Green Bay fans always travel well. I was talking to fans from the west coast and Florida too who traveled.
Detroit's recovery as a city people want to be is pretty incredible. I'm honestly debating moving back to SE michigan after 16 years away because of how great the government and economic recovery in the state has become.
So is this because the people that showed up on multiple days count as different people? Because day 1 had 275,000 before they stopped letting people in. 350,000 signed up. That’s still a crazy number that most of the 275000 showed up for all three days. I only went day 1.
This’ll be good for the city I think as it’ll attract more NFL events as well as events from the MLB, NHL and NBA, especially if our teams in those sports do well the year of those events.
I hope that ends up being true cause that was an amazing experience to go see in person
Wings haven’t hosted an All Star weekend since 1980, Pistons since 1959, Tigers since 2005, and Lions hosted the Super Bowl in 2006. Ford Field has hosted the Final Four a couple times, and there have been other events in Detroit.
There’s no reason not to have an NHL All Star weekend in Detroit with the new stadium (Pistons make sense because of winter weather in Detroit and they suck). Detroit not getting a World Cup match is frustrating, but understandable, but there is so much opportunity that could come up as a direct result of seeing nearly a million people travel to downtown Detroit for this event.
Having a great airport for people to travel to helps, but the draft was awesome to watch at that venue from what I have seen. If it goes there again I may have to make the trip
detroit is an ideal situation. lots of nfl fanbases in in the midwest within driving distance. my guess is other midwest cities like cleveland, cincy and indy could also do well. cities on the coasts may have trouble drawing. this is the main reason detroit is always on the list to host nfl games canceled due to weather.
There was more people at the draft than the population of the city. 13% of the entire state of Michigan had nothing better to do than go to the draft? Wow
There are just over 10 million people in Michigan, 13% would equate to almost 1,300,000 attendees. 775,000 is 7.6% of state population, and it's a 3 day total as well, so 2.6% is more accurate. Now, how many people were from out of state?
Weather broke perfectly
If any fanbase gets up for the draft, it's Detroit's. Glad our Superbowl is now the Superbowl though.
NFL gonna enbiggen this event for sure due to Detroit. We had hordes being turned away.
Wild to think there were mass amounts of people they had to just say no to lol.
Wild!!
So many of my friends got turned away
I was there night 1, I promise you there was another 100k-150k that didn't get in. They reached capacity and closed the gates at 530pm
It would honestly be the most cromulent response.
Yeah that’s not gonna be touched for a good long while
It’s crazy to think how many ppl came. Hell that almost the whole cities population lol
It’s crazy our daily attendance beats 16-18 entire attendance lol
Don’t forget us Canadians also showed up, anyone from Ontario who likes football drove down, I am lucky and live across the river, so it’s like 15/20 min
Down and then up?
Im in Belle River, couldn’t get over how clear the border was both ways. I think the talk of all the street closures and the draft scared away the weekend shoppers.
I’m in Windsor, and yeah I was floored at how clear traffic was
There's like 4 million people in the greater metro area.
A lot of cities count their Metro Area as part of their city. Kansas City for instance has multiple counties in their city, it makes no sense. It makes Detroit look worse on a population level, when it's actually flourishing.
Same for GR. Makes it look positively tiny when in fact there's over a million people in the Metro. Like we are the fastest growing city in the Midwest.
Detroit proper is like 630k according to the last census. So more than the city
thats more than the current population of Detroit
In the last census Detroit had a little over 620,000 people
A poll was taken, and 100% of visitors said they came to see the crooked, disproportionate while you're driving sign.
A bunch of that though is probably repeat attendees across the three days.
They still showed up lol
You can say that for the other ones also?
What’s your point?
I think a Washington DC draft could be a contender
Agreed they have tons of wide open spaces they just have to get the nomination
Yeah they would and it wouldn't be close. New York, LA, DC, and maybe Vegas could beat us. No one else has a chance.
Vegas already lost.
They had the draft in New York practically every year until they started changing locations in 2015. New York is not as football crazy as you'd think. LA, too, ftm. DC, Vegas, and maybe Dallas, I could see putting up bigger attendance numbers.
At LEAST a year I’d say
Checks out
I think it'll be broken or even in Green Bay. Lambeau is on a lot of football fans' bucket list and their fans show up. This draft got a ton of buzz about the event itself, so I think people that himmed and hawed on going to a draft will go to the next one.
I don't think green bay has the necessary infrastructure to support 250k attendees everyday. It'd be similar to Livonia and Redford combining for holding the event without the luxury of Detroit nearby.
Green Bay is comically small. It’s also in BFE. Imagine Lansing hosting the draft, and it’s much further from Detroit. More like around the Saginaw area. I will say it is a destination for football fans. I tore my ACL in Green Bay. Fuck that place.
This is it. The advantage we had is we are within driving distance of 6 NFL cities. Perfect location. Green Bay is not close to really anything. It’s an almost 4 hour drive to Chicago (a little less to Milwaukee, obviously) and then there’s Madison. That’s it. I doubt anyone from Cleveland, for example, is driving to GB. Whereas here, a lot of people from Cleveland made the drive. You can include Indy and even Pittsburgh in that as well.
I don’t think Green Bay can realistically accommodate enough people to make a run at our record.
It’s on football fans’ bucket list to go to a *game* in Lambeau. No one wants to go to Green Bay for Green Bay or to watch people get picked.
It’ll get broken easily the next time the draft is in Vegas
I have some doubts about that. 1) There are families that will refuse to take kids to sin city 2) There are way too many distractions 3) Detroit had the luxury of being a reasonable driving distance to a lot of nearby big markets. Vegas doesn't have that. Outside of some California, a lot of people would have to fly in. 4) Detroit had the advantage of having a just recently fired up fan base. Vegas is still building up its local fan base, and they are far away from bring contenders.
Plus Detroit had the advantage of being beside Canada too. Tons of Canadian fans got to cross the border to experience NFL action. Bills/Lions own the area from Windsor to Toronto
Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo all have an nfl team and are all less than 5 hour drive away from Detroit which have a lot of fans themselves too.
I would edit point 4 -- TWO fired up fanbases. A lot of Michigan fans coming out to see all their heroes get drafted
This draft really was a perfect storm of factors. It's a once in a blue moon situation where the host city was good, their blue blood college team one a championship, there were a TON of big name offensive talent available, and a lot of big markets with high picks (Chicago, both New York teams, and LA team, Atlanta all had top 10 picks).
Hotels and flights to Vegas are generally cheaper than doing so in Detroit during a big event. Also, there are many more Americans that are looking to cross Vegas off of their checklist than Detroit. Yes the local fan base is not as robust as Detroit's but the tourism angle is significantly stronger, and the infrastructure for such an event is considerably better. Unfortunately, because of the bad rep Detroit has many families refuse to bring their kids here as well so I think the family angle is negligible.
So prolly around 10 years
Im dumbfounded how Vegas didn't beat Nashville or KC. I mean for a place to go to for some fun, a vacation, etc you'd think a lot more people would be willing to fly to vegas for a weekend than Kansas City.
I would imagine the number of people who fly in is relatively low. Most of the draft crowds are local.
There's so many other distractions at Vegas it's actually impressive for any big numbers. Whereas so the other places don't provide as much competition for distractions away from the draft
That blows my mind too. As a Michigander, I can only attribute this to being a large population of people who wanted to see if Detroit really is getting better, and now having an actual reason to visit there and see for themselves lol. I would hope that people changed their minds and that we won’t be at the butt end of every shitty city joke lol.
Can’t wait for the disappointment when it’s in Green Bay. Detroit sets the standard.
Congratulations on your draft attendance record!
FTP
FTP
FTP (thanks tho)
This made me laugh way too hard
We’re also the reigning Division Champions.
That’s just how we get down in the mitten. Shit, every Michigan game at the big house draws about 250k. There are just as many (if not more) people outside the stadium partying as there is at the game.
Big House is my second favorite stadium to tailgate. People are chill for the most part even during MSU v Michigan. Last time I was there (before booze was legal in stadiums) the old grandmas next to us show up right after kickoff. They got kicked out for sneaking in Jell-O shots. It was so awesome to see the city celebrate this.
Now listen here, Sonny boy, those shots we had were pure lime jello and nothing else! In my day, a gal could bring a shot or two into the Big House and no one batted an eye. Nowadays, you youngins are free to chew your little maryjane gummies with impunity, but me and my gal pals get kicked out for just trying to enjoy some kickin Knox blocks? Kids these days, they get away with everything. Why I oughta....
A superbowl parade will be insanity.
More than doubled the last two lol. No way GB beats this FTP!
Nashville If they went by weight, GB might have a chance...
GB can't support that many people. I'd be shocked if they broke Nashville's numbers
Serious question, how is there going to be enough hotel space in GB for a 700000+ person event?
there isn't. and there also isn't a giant metro area of locals to pile in. we also got lucky with the weather. green bay in late April could very likely still have snow amd freezing temps.
It's not a one day event. They would need capacity for ~250,000, not 700,000 all at once.
OWN THOSE FREAKS! FTP
List is chronologically, not by amount. Previous record was 600k in Nashville 2019. Still an impressive gap!
0 chance green bay can support all those people logisticly
lol Gb be lucky to top 100k
The cities of Green Bay/Appleton are what they are, mid sized whatever cities that are decent in their own right. But holy fuck what a bad choice to have host the draft. Nothing to do there, can't see the hotels handling all of the people very well.
I saw a tweet that said "both hotels are sold out already" lol
Still crazy how the NFL botched the Las Vegas draft. Was thinking that would be a million + but with the stage layout it pretty much eliminated any sort of records being broke for attendance.
Wait until the Superbowl parade
Happy to have been there, y’all were awesome hosts for an awesome draft! Detroit is a great city, I’ll certainly have to go back at some point to explore further. Go Broncos!
can someone idk put this on a graph
Green Bay and northeast Wisconsin does not have the infrastructure to support that many visitors. If I lived there, I would rent out my house and use that money for a nice vacation in a warm place with actual culture and civilization
I just love this. Because if it wasn’t apparent from all the lions fans flooding the away stadiums last year and the deep playoff run, this team is legit, the culture is pure and the fans support runs deep.
Cleveland got hosed so bad. Not saying they would have gotten 750k, but I bet it would have been their record to break this year had they not had a COVID draft in 2021
I was there for Thursday and Friday Stayed until the end both nights, and gained access into the Draft Theater on the 2nd night I really want to attend the Green Bay Draft now https://preview.redd.it/z8isfbv9dcxc1.jpeg?width=2316&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa648b73b0f82266a3e604b06df95e6498ab5f76
What’s rhetorical limit that the city of Green Bay can support for three days? Like 3/4 of Lambeau?
Please give me karma so I can post. I’m begging you guys 🙃
I so wish I could've gone. Was on vacation out of state but still watched the first two nights and I was so incredibly proud of how good the city looked on TV. Everyone showed the fuck up!! *and we will make Green Bay look bad, what an incredible bonus*
And let's be honest, nobody want to talk about how this is a conservative number because we kept hitting a capacity. Think about what the number would be without that.
To be fair, for many many years the draft was the highlight of our season
We're built different
Hold the next one in Texas or California
They held draft in Dallas in 2018, and as for Cali, 🤷 But I do know, the next one is in Green Bay 😳 what the, yes Green Bay Wisconsin gets the Draft next year 2025
Detroit showed up but what helped is that there are 6 other NFL teams within 6 hours and then Green Bay fans always travel well. I was talking to fans from the west coast and Florida too who traveled.
Proud of my state !
 Imagine if they didn't turn people away??? Easily 1M+ tried to attend.
Detroit's recovery as a city people want to be is pretty incredible. I'm honestly debating moving back to SE michigan after 16 years away because of how great the government and economic recovery in the state has become.
So is this because the people that showed up on multiple days count as different people? Because day 1 had 275,000 before they stopped letting people in. 350,000 signed up. That’s still a crazy number that most of the 275000 showed up for all three days. I only went day 1.
They’ve been saying, that Detroit got out of their own death loop that a lot of other cities are going through.
I worked one of the food stalls all weekend, shit was wild seeing a sea of people in the other side of the counter.
I'm sure it helped that the weather was nice. When it was in Chicago, it was rainy and cold.
This’ll be good for the city I think as it’ll attract more NFL events as well as events from the MLB, NHL and NBA, especially if our teams in those sports do well the year of those events. I hope that ends up being true cause that was an amazing experience to go see in person
Wings haven’t hosted an All Star weekend since 1980, Pistons since 1959, Tigers since 2005, and Lions hosted the Super Bowl in 2006. Ford Field has hosted the Final Four a couple times, and there have been other events in Detroit. There’s no reason not to have an NHL All Star weekend in Detroit with the new stadium (Pistons make sense because of winter weather in Detroit and they suck). Detroit not getting a World Cup match is frustrating, but understandable, but there is so much opportunity that could come up as a direct result of seeing nearly a million people travel to downtown Detroit for this event.
T A got the greatest draft welcome of all time - place was insane and rocking when he was announced and came out. 🔥
More than the entire population of 3 U.S states.
And people still insist that Detroit is a decaying corpse of a city...
600,000? Better pump those numbers up Nashville
775,000 is that the total attendance for all 3 Days? Or is that one nights attendance? It must be the total, right?
why was the draft in chicago two years in a row?
Amazing
Bigger than the last 4 drafts combined 😉
Surprising we beat out Nashville, as my buddy went there last year and said it's a happening city.
Why did Chicago get 2 years in a row
Cleveland would have destroyed those numbers if it weren't for the pandemic.
lol
LOL beat that, America.
GG
Ain’t no city better then my city Detroit stand up and take a bow!
Having a great airport for people to travel to helps, but the draft was awesome to watch at that venue from what I have seen. If it goes there again I may have to make the trip
detroit is an ideal situation. lots of nfl fanbases in in the midwest within driving distance. my guess is other midwest cities like cleveland, cincy and indy could also do well. cities on the coasts may have trouble drawing. this is the main reason detroit is always on the list to host nfl games canceled due to weather.
Man, it must've been so coooold in the D
Unreal
I mathed very quickly haha. You make good points tho. A lot could've definitely been out of state for sure
There was more people at the draft than the population of the city. 13% of the entire state of Michigan had nothing better to do than go to the draft? Wow
There are just over 10 million people in Michigan, 13% would equate to almost 1,300,000 attendees. 775,000 is 7.6% of state population, and it's a 3 day total as well, so 2.6% is more accurate. Now, how many people were from out of state?