The NFL will proceed with the 2020 draft on April 23-25, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets. However, the league has 86’d public events in Las Vegas and is exploring “innovative ways for how the process will be conducted,” Garafolo hears. The league has since confirmed the measure via press release.
“This decision reflects our foremost priority – the health and safety of all fans and citizens,” said Roger Goodell in a statement. “While this outcome is disappointing both to the NFL and to the Las Vegas community, we look forward to partnering with the Raiders, the City of Las Vegas, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority for a future NFL Draft as well as evaluating other opportunities for other major NFL events in Las Vegas in the future, including the Super Bowl.”
Even without fans involved, it’s hard to imagine the league conducting the draft in its traditional fashion with thousands of executives, league officials, and players gathering in one place. Instead, the most likely outcome – we imagine – would see the entire process take place remotely via video conferencing.
Already, the NFL has moved to cancel pre-draft visits. The entire sporting world has taken similar steps, with a few exceptions. The UFC is one outlier – they still plan to hold their scheduled events over the next few weeks, with an eye on using their own Apex training center (also in Las Vegas) for at least some of them. The Nevada State Athletic Commission may block those plans, leaving the last North American sport to consider Native American reservations and other alternatives, if they stay the course.
if they draft gets screwed b/c of this people are going to flip. People can laugh, taunt, or talk crap about me in the comment s if they choose. They won’t change my stance, you can say OMG, this is people’s life at stake, how can we think of sports at a time like this?????? Sports is a release from real world. This crap is getting to crazy right now.
Maybe try what a lot of us are and find a new release. New hobby, project. Lot more things in life than sports.
Good for the NFL.
The NFL does most of this draft remotely anyway. It’s a month away, plenty of time to transition to draft sponsored by Zoom. No need for a Vegas party if the strip shutdown anyway.