2025 NFL draft to be held at Lambeau Field

[HarryDoyle]

https://www.nfl.com/news/green-bay-to-be-site-of-2025-nfl-draft

[CheezWizHed]

Good news for GB.  We will never be a SB site, but the draft is still a pretty high profile event. Lambeau Field and the surrounding area should complement that sized event well. 

[nate82]

10 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Good news for GB.  We will never be a SB site, but the draft is still a pretty high profile event. Lambeau Field and the surrounding area should complement that sized event well. 

Except GB doesn’t have the hotel capacity for this.  I doubt many are going to be willing to stay 30-45 minutes away from the event.  Some will but the majority are going to have to do the Airbnb thing if they want to be close to the event.

Transportation will also be a nightmare.  Not to mention majority that will be flying in will be coming from Chicago or Milwaukee.  Plus the weather normally sucks around the time the draft is on.  It could possibly be snowing when the draft happens.  That would be a disaster.

[homer]

12 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Except GB doesn’t have the hotel capacity for this.  I doubt many are going to be willing to stay 30-45 minutes away from the event.  Some will but the majority are going to have to do the Airbnb thing if they want to be close to the event.

Transportation will also be a nightmare.  Not to mention majority that will be flying in will be coming from Chicago or Milwaukee.  Plus the weather normally sucks around the time the draft is on.  It could possibly be snowing when the draft happens.  That would be a disaster.

I think snow would be awesome.

[areacodes]

28 minutes ago, homer said:

I think snow would be awesome.

I was gonna reply with the exact same thing.

Had a conversation with a buddy up in GB and he’s pretty stoked about it.

We both agreed that it could be 70’s and gorgeous, a blizzard or anything in between that time of year.

[PeaveyFury]

I think the 'lack of infrastructure' talk is largely coming from fringe national media types that like to poke at the Packers' fanbase because it's huge and generates clicks for their media posts/stories.

Everything the NFL does is ultra-planned. There's a virtually 0% chance they award Green Bay the draft if they were concerned about infrastructure or logistics.

[CheezWizHed]

Infrastructure always comes up with the SB discussion, but the draft is a MUCH smaller crowd.  Plus in some larger cities, having a hotel on the other side of the city means being 30-45 min away. 

[nate82]

1 hour ago, PeaveyFury said:

 

I think the 'lack of infrastructure' talk is largely coming from fringe national media types that like to poke at the Packers' fanbase because it's huge and generates clicks for their media posts/stories.

 

Except GB only has about 5k hotel rooms total.  That will fill up quickly.  A total of 312k fans were in KC this year.  That is almost three times the population of GB.  Let’s say it was only 140k out of state fans that came.  That means you have to expand the hotel range to as far as the Sheboygan area which is about an hour to GB.

Hotel accommodation will be a problem.  Maybe the NFL is thinking it will be more like the Cleveland numbers which was only 160k in 2021 or closer to Chicago numbers of 200k in 2015.

Also getting into GB can be a pain when the Packers are at home or it was the last time I was in the GB area during a home game in 2016.

I am not sure the GB area can even hold 300k people.  Especially near Lambeau.

[homer]

It's a made for tv event. The people are just frosting. I don't think the NFL really cares if they have to commute 3 hours to get there. 

 

[Fear The Chorizo]

How many of those 312K fans were Chiefs fans who came from their homes?  KC metro area only has 36,000 hotel rooms.  I'd imagine there will be a ton of Packer fans attending the event who don't need hotel rooms.  Hell - Packer game days have fans staying in hotels out towards Wausau and other areas more than an hour from the stadium.  

If I lived anywhere near Green Bay, I'd be setting my house up on VRBO and also planning for a sweet Spring Break vacation if I didn't have plans to attend the draft.  I think Lambeau area/Titletown district will be a great venue for the draft

[nate82]

3 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

How many of those 312K fans were Chiefs fans who came from their homes? 

Even if it was something crazy like 70% came from the Missouri and Kansas area that would be about 220k people that still leaves about 90k people visiting from out of the area.  I still have doubts that GB will be able to hold this many people.  I would not want to be anywhere near GB during the NFL draft. 

[igor67]

I could see parts of Door County putting something together to draw some people in that direction.

[LouisEly]

19 hours ago, nate82 said:

Except GB only has about 5k hotel rooms total.  That will fill up quickly.  A total of 312k fans were in KC this year.  That is almost three times the population of GB.  Let’s say it was only 140k out of state fans that came.  That means you have to expand the hotel range to as far as the Sheboygan area which is about an hour to GB.

Hotel accommodation will be a problem.  Maybe the NFL is thinking it will be more like the Cleveland numbers which was only 160k in 2021 or closer to Chicago numbers of 200k in 2015.

Also getting into GB can be a pain when the Packers are at home or it was the last time I was in the GB area during a home game in 2016.

I am not sure the GB area can even hold 300k people.  Especially near Lambeau.

The number of attendees in KC was the total attendance over the three days.  They weren't getting 300k per day in KC; it wasn't much more than 100k per day which isn't much more than GB has on an average game day.  Yes, lots flew in, but the majority were local.  And they won't have lawn seating like KC; if it's in the stadium, they'll only be able to sell ~60k seats at max because the stage will block the view of at least 20% of the seats.

Unlike other large cities, the hotel rooms in GB/Fox Valley/Door County will be empty that time of year.  No competition from conventions, business travelers, no holidays or special times of year (such as fall in Door County, summer on the lakes, etc.).  And on game day, many people choose to stay 50+ miles away because every hotel within 30 miles of Lambeau has a 3-night minimum on game day weekends.

It's really not going to be much different than an average game day, if not smaller.

[Fear The Chorizo]

7 hours ago, nate82 said:

Even if it was something crazy like 70% came from the Missouri and Kansas area that would be about 220k people that still leaves about 90k people visiting from out of the area.  I still have doubts that GB will be able to hold this many people.  I would not want to be anywhere near GB during the NFL draft. 

As LouisEly mentioned just above - that's a 3-day attendance total.

2022's EAA in Oshkosh as about 650K people over like 6 days....so basically attendance at EAA per day is the same as draft attendance per day.

And we're also not talking about all these people going to exactly the same spot at exactly the same time...attendance figures for these type of events use all sorts of data to justify adding random purchases or just about anything tied to the event to the overall attendance total.  that way it makes them look massively attended.  It wouldn't surprise me to see a Packer game day attendance figure that would include the titletown district using similar data to push 150K people despite the stadium capacity during the actual game being roughly half that total.

[nate82]

54 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

As LouisEly mentioned just above - that's a 3-day attendance total.

2022's EAA in Oshkosh as about 650K people over like 6 days....so basically attendance at EAA per day is the same as draft attendance per day.

The peak of the attendance is going to be on day one and that is going to be where the vast majority are coming to watch the draft.  The figures for each day were 125k day 1, 84k day 2 and 100k day 3 in KC https://fox4kc.com/sports/nfl-draft/nfl-draft-records-over-300000-people-in-attendance/.  The day 3 looks like it should be day 2 maybe it was higher because it was a Saturday and there were more families at the event for that day.

I am still not convinced that area will be big enough to take on 125k and I doubt the Packers bring in 150k people on game days.  Probably closer to 80k including the fans in the stadium. 

[LouisEly]

14 hours ago, nate82 said:

I am still not convinced that area will be big enough to take on 125k and I doubt the Packers bring in 150k people on game days.  Probably closer to 80k including the fans in the stadium. 

Did you watch the draft?  KC had lawn seating which added tens of thousands of "seats" that will not be available if they have it in Lambeau.

Capacity of Lambeau is 81,441, not the 61,500 that piss-ant spaceship inside of Soldier Field houses.  Add thousands of team/stadium/Titletown complex employees who don't purchase a seat, league/media personnel, other employees of nearby businesses/bars/hotels, tailgaters/nearby residents, and it's easily 100k on game day.

[jerichoholicninja]

So other than watching a guy stand at a podium and read names is there anything else to do at the draft? Seems like a totally pointless event to attend as a fan.

[Fear The Chorizo]

5 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Did you watch the draft?  KC had lawn seating which added tens of thousands of "seats" that will not be available if they have it in Lambeau.

Capacity of Lambeau is 81,441, not the 61,500 that piss-ant spaceship inside of Soldier Field houses.  Add thousands of team/stadium/Titletown complex employees who don't purchase a seat, league/media personnel, other employees of nearby businesses/bars/hotels, tailgaters/nearby residents, and it's easily 100k on game day.

Adding to this - there are thousands of fans/folks who show up on gameday for tailgating/hanging out around the stadium who have zero intention of going into the stadium/buying a ticket for the game, too.

What Lambeau and the Titletown district have to accomodate a Packers' game day is more than enough to host a draft

[brooks_quichenick]

4 hours ago, jerichoholicninja said:

So other than watching a guy stand at a podium and read names is there anything else to do at the draft? Seems like a totally pointless event to attend as a fan.

You get to boo Roger Goodell!

[MrTPlush]

#1 The logistics is irrelevant. It will hold what it can hold. People aren’t going to travel there if they don’t have accommodations. It is what it is. 
 

#2 The weather is already being blown out of proportion. Even this far north in Wisconsin, April snow isn’t that crazy…and in the waning days before May? Yah…very very unlikely. If it did happen, it would be a cute storyline with zero travel impact. Now will it be warm, well, not really.

[homer]

Apparently, Mark Murphy wants to set up train service from Chicago/Milwaukee to Green Bay for the draft:

Quote

Wisconsin submitted four applications, one for each route extension, an application for increasing the Hiawatha frequency and an application for expanding the TCMC to three daily round trips. The corridors are also identified in Amtrak’s Connects US, which aims to add 39 new routes by 2035. Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy wants to shave 10 years off that timeline. He suggested this year that the Packers are pursuing special trains to Green Bay for the 2025 NFL Draft and discussion are underway with Amtrak.

https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2023/05/26/wisconsin-planning-passenger-trains-to-green-bay-madison/?fbclid=IwAR31TyGf88elL9LdnAGTf8LwdhOjkAPpBFBxLMTcPixKt4aDvLosRLyV5GQ

[endaround]

On 5/26/2023 at 9:37 PM, MrTPlush said:

#1 The logistics is irrelevant. It will hold what it can hold. People aren’t going to travel there if they don’t have accommodations. It is what it is. 
 

#2 The weather is already being blown out of proportion. Even this far north in Wisconsin, April snow isn’t that crazy…and in the waning days before May? Yah…very very unlikely. If it did happen, it would be a cute storyline with zero travel impact. Now will it be warm, well, not really.

Yeah it has almost been 3 weeks since we had snow in May

[MrTPlush]

6 hours ago, endaround said:

Yeah it has almost been 3 weeks since we had snow in May

Ahh yes, a few inches that maybe covers the grass and has no bearing on anything else. 
 

 

[patrickgpe]

On 5/26/2023 at 12:04 PM, jerichoholicninja said:

So other than watching a guy stand at a podium and read names is there anything else to do at the draft? Seems like a totally pointless event to attend as a fan.

I think it’s more the experience. Fans for every team will be in one place. I know they have live music between picks. I’m sure the beer will be flowing and it will be a giant tailgate party basically