The host city for the 2027 NFL draft is up for grabs, and momentum is steadily building for Cincinnati to make a bid for one of the nation’s most popular annual sports-related events.
Cincinnati needs this to get in the big-events game, and it's encouraging business and tourism leaders are being proactive and taking a we-can-do-better approach after recently missing out on the World Cup and NCAA Tournament.
Visit Cincy CEO Julie Calvert was spot when she told me: "We have talked. We have thought. We have wrung our hands for a long time. Now it's time to act. That's what this is all about."
The NFL draft is coming off a huge weekend in Kansas City, where the three-day event drew 312,000 fans. It's the second-highest draw since the NFL started taking the draft on the road to its local markets in 2015 after decades of it being hosted in New York City.
If Kansas City can do it well, why not similar-sized Cincinnati? The draft is scheduled for Detroit next year. It’s likely headed to Green Bay in 2025. After that, who knows. The Bengals have notified the NFL of Cincinnati’s interest to host the event in either 2027, 2028 or 2029, news announced at the convention and visitors’ bureau’s annual meeting in March.
Cincinnati leaders are targeting a 2027 bid at the earliest, figuring a new convention hotel would be completed by then. The city already has a couple of ready-made, prime locations for hosting the draft – The Banks and Union Terminal. Meantime, local leaders are working on reconstituting the long-dormant sports commission − a critical marketing mechanism that every major city has to recruit the draft and other major sports-related events.
Local leaders are motivated after watching Kansas City successfully host the draft. Frankly, they're tired of losing major events to Kansas City, Indianapolis, Nashville and a handful of other so-called peer cities – and missing out on the tens of millions in economic impact for the region. The draft is a showcase for cities, most of which are constantly clamoring to grow jobs and population. Some 54 million viewers tuned in to watch last week's draft, and the audience was regularly shown scenes of Kansas City.
Kansas City beat out Cincinnati as the midwestern city host for the 2026 World Cup. NCAA Tournament first-weekend games were originally scheduled to be played in Cincinnati in March, but event organizers reneged because of the aging condition of Heritage Bank Center.
It’s why talk of a new arena and decking Fort Washington Way have heated up recently. (Is it a coincidence that’s happened as City Hall pushes a plan to sell a city-owned railroad for $1.6 billion?) Those are longer-term projects, and leaders have realized other things can be done to improve efforts to land events. It's led to a plan to start anew on the sports commission, which would serve as a mini-convention and visitors' bureau for sporting events.
Cincinnati is the largest city in the U.S. that doesn’t have an active sports commission working to recruit events. Once the sports commission is revived, it can formally organize a bid for the NFL draft and other events.
The draft shouldn’t be a tough sell. The big difference between hosting the draft and other events: Cincinnati doesn’t appear to need major infrastructure improvements – beyond the convention hotel already in the works – to host the draft.
A new arena is needed for Cincinnati to land the NCAA Tournament. The World Cup was going to require a $10 million overhaul of the Paycor Stadium field, in addition to millions more for venues and infrastructure upgrades across town.
By comparison, the NFL draft would be relatively inexpensive to host. Or at least the bang-for-the-buck seemingly would be better, considering most host cities have calculated around a $100 million economic impact for hosting the draft.
The Kansas City city council reportedly approved $3 million for draft-related expenses. The Green Bay Packers have estimated it’ll cost $6 million to $7 million to host the draft in their city, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette.
In Cincinnati, preliminary talks among leaders have centered on using The Banks music venue for the draft’s outdoor stage and indoor greenroom, the waiting area for potential first-round picks. The venue, which opened in 2021, has an outdoor stage.
Union Terminal would offer a larger, more contiguous outdoor space for fans to gather. It would showcase one of the city’s iconic buildings. The terminal’s majestic atrium area could serve as the greenroom. The stage potentially could be setup in front of the building, facing east toward Downtown.
Kansas City used its iconic Union Station for the greenroom. The stage was set up just outside the building and faced the large open area of the neighboring National WWI Museum and Memorial.
The details can be worked out later. First, Cincinnati desperately needs a big-event win.
Contact columnist Jason Williams by email at jwilliams@enquirer.com and on Twitter @jwilliamscincy.
