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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWashington, D.C., has been chosen to host the NFL Draft in spring 2027, two people familiar with the planning said Sunday night.
The draft is expected to be held on the National Mall, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not yet been made public. The official announcement is scheduled to be made Monday at the White House. President Donald Trump’s public schedule for Monday includes a “sports announcement” at 1 p.m.
The 2027 draft is the next available one; the NFL previously awarded the 2026 draft to Pittsburgh.
Indianapolis was among the cities who turned in bids in 2021 in hopes of landing either the 2026 or 2027 draft, but has since switched its attention to hosting one in future years.
The awarding of the draft to Washington brings one of the NFL’s signature events to the nation’s capital and represents another vote of confidence by the league in the Washington Commanders and their ownership group led by Josh Harris, who a week ago announced an agreement with D.C. for a new stadium at the RFK Stadium site.
That estimated $3.7 billion deal was announced to cheers at the National Press Club by Harris, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The agreement still must be approved by the D.C. Council. It would give the city and the team a stadium with a roof, which would put Washington in position to be considered for hosting its first Super Bowl.
The Washington bid to host the 2027 draft has envisioned staging a significant portion of the three-day event on the National Mall, according to planning documents and emails obtained last year by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request to the National Park Service. Those documents provided insight into what local organizers internally referred to as “Project Breeze.”
The league, according to the emails, proposed having the main stage for the draft on Fourth Street between Madison and Jefferson drives, near the National Gallery of Art and the National Air and Space Museum. A portion also could be held on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where attendees could flow to the Mall. It’s not clear whether the plans have changed since then.
An estimated 600,000 fans attended last month’s three-day draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a city with a population of just over 100,000. That included a crowd of 220,000 on the draft’s third and final day. About 1,800 media members were on hand to cover the proceedings. Broadcast coverage of the opening night of the draft drew 13.6 million viewers.
Before the draft, the Green Bay chamber of commerce projected a statewide economic impact of $94 million based on a much lower projected attendance of 250,000 over the three days.
Washington was among a dozen cities with representatives at the 2024 draft in Detroit to conduct site surveys. A record crowd of 775,000 fans over three days attended that draft.
For more than four decades, the NFL held the draft in various locations in New York before moving it to Chicago in 2015 and 2016. The event has moved to different NFL cities annually since then, with a level of success that has been a pleasant surprise to league leaders. The draft was held in Philadelphia in 2017; Arlington, Texas, in 2018; Nashville in 2019; Cleveland in 2021; Las Vegas in 2022; and Kansas City, Missouri, in 2023. The 2020 draft was conducted remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the fall of 2023—only months after Harris and his partners purchased the Commanders and their Landover stadium from Daniel Snyder for $6.50 billion—a delegation from the NFL visited D.C. to assess the area’s potential for hosting a future draft, multiple people with knowledge of the visit said.
In his nearly two years of owning the Commanders, Harris has worked to restore the franchise’s reputation and fan base following decades of turmoil during Snyder’s ownership. The team hired Adam Peters as its general manager and Dan Quinn as its coach last year before choosing quarterback Jayden Daniels with the second selection in the 2024 draft. Daniels was named the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year after guiding the Commanders to a 12-5 regular season record and an appearance in the NFC championship game in a remarkable year-over-year transformation.
Other NFL team owners spoke during the Commanders’ sale process of the importance to the league of having a successful franchise in Washington. The stadium deal and the awarding of the draft serve as exclamation points to the success of that restoration project.
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Are we actually supposed to believe these numbers 600,000? 750,000? It’s absolutely ridiculous. Let’s take the low number, 600k, over 3 days, that is 200,000 per day (if the attendance were spread evenly each day, which it is not). Sorry but that doesn’t even pass the laugh test. I remember watching Detroit and Nashville, the crowd wasn’t half of the number they claimed.
Does IBJ just print information in press releases without any scrutiny whatsoever? What’s the point of a newsroom or an editorial staff?
John, this is a Washington Post story. There were no press releases involved. I can tell you that these numbers are compiled by the NFL based on gate entry for each day of the draft. So, if somebody shows up for three straight days, that person is counted as three people toward the overall attendance number. The aerial photos for these events show massive crowds. What makes you think the numbers are inaccurate?