Kansas City is a finalist to host the NFL Draft

Kansas City is among five finalists to host the NFL Draft in either 2019 or 2020, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

As noted soon after by NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport, cities are ineligible to win the host city rights for both years. I’m no math expert, but that actually gives Kansas City a one-in-four chance.

The NFL Draft took place in New York City from 1965 to 2014. Since then, the draft has been held in Chicago (2015-2016), and Philadelphia (2017). This year’s draft is scheduled to take place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt last spoke about the draft back in August of 2017.

“Any time we can bring a national event to Kansas City, that’s something we want to do,” he said, via the Kansas City Star. “Whether it’s a college football game at Arrowhead or the NFL Draft, which has become one of the biggest properties on TV and a very coveted event for cities across the country.”

Philadelphia’s draft attracted 250,000 people, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he felt Kansas City could match such a number during his visit to Arrowhead Stadium back in June.

“I think we’d see the same kind of passion here in Kansas City,” Goodell said. “But I believe we had 14 cities in Philadelphia that were all there to talk about how we’re going to improve our bid, our proposal, how we would make the draft even bigger. So the game and the standards keep going up.”

According to Matt Derrick of Chiefs Digest, the venues in Kansas City that were pitched are as follows:

My take

I believe Kansas City has a great shot here.

Of the cities left, only Kansas City and Cleveland have given up a home game overseas since the international series began in 2007. The Chiefs also recently agreed to play the Rams as a visitor in Mexico City next season. These things matter.

I think given Hunt’s work as chairman of the international committee (and the success of that series), his inclusion on the compensation committee, along with the enthusiasm of Goodell during his visit (I was there and felt it was genuine), expect Kansas City to get a nod.

As for a venue, I disagree with Derrick. Give me Union Station.