Looks like the Draft could be rolling into the Music City for 2019.
The NFL Draft has become a traveling road show over the past several years, making stops in Chicago (2015 & 2016), Philadelphia (2017) and Dallas for this year’s version. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the next stop on the draft’s U. S. tour will likely be Nashville, Tennessee.
The owner’s meetings begin today in Atlanta, Georgia and, as Schefter stated, the site of next year’s draft is expected to be decided. The league announced the final five finalists for the 2019 and 2020 drafts in February with Las Vegas, Denver, Cleveland/Canton and Kansas City joining Nashville on the list.
Over the weekend, Cameron Wolfe of ESPN.com posted a story that gave an inside look at Nashville’s bid to host the draft, speaking with Butch Spyridon, the CEO of Nashville Conventions and Visitors Corp. According to the story, Spyridon has big ideas for the draft if it does make its way to his city.
“In 2019, we can blow this thing up, following Dallas indoors in the stadium. It’d be a 180-degree turn,” Spyridon said. “New York is the gold standard, but New York is an event. Dallas is an event. Nashville is a party. You’re going to know that you were going to be in Nashville and you’re going to have a good time.”
Immersing fans in the full Nashville experience seems to be a large part of the selling point for the bid, which has four main goals according to Wolfe’s piece:
The theater referenced in that last bullet point is the Ascend Amphitheater, located on the river front. We’ll see if Nashville is officially announced as the host city after owners convene over the next several days.
