2015 NFL Draft Could Change Cities, Expand
The 2015 NFL Draft may not be held at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The venue is reportedly booked for the time slot the NFL wants to host the draft, as the league had been postponing booking the venue to consider other options.
Those options will now have to be taken more seriously, as Radio City Music Hall at least for now looks to be off the table. The NFL appears to want to move next year’s draft back up into April, as they try to move back to their pre-2014 league schedule.
Two dates are being thrown around, as the NFL also contemplates stretching the three-day event into four days. Those dates would be April 22-25 or April 29 to May 2nd. Returning to the April 22-25 schedule would have the draft working back toward the way the NFL normally conducts the draft, albeit with one extra day.
The need for a fourth day doesn’t make much sense, as the draft has already been stretched painfully thin to a three-day event. Focusing on just the first round of the draft on day one has always made good sense, but splitting rounds 2-3 and rounds 4-7 up has always been a bit of a head-scratcher.
Under the new four-day plan, the league may aim to simply slice rounds 4-7 up, giving fans a more balanced schedule. That would leave day one with the first round, day two with rounds 2-3, day three with rounds 4-5 and the fourth and final day with the final two rounds, 6-7.
Talk of kicking the draft forward into April is a bit odd, as the league even toyed with the idea of pushing the draft even further back in May.
The league was attempting to generate constant interest in it’s product, while creating extra buzz surrounding one of it’s biggest events of the year (arguably second only to the Super Bowl). The switch back to an April draft may be an admittance that the attempt to do so was a failure.
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