I live in WI, the draft is in green bay and people are losing their minds. Why? What’s so special about teams picking players? It shouldn’t be this big of a deal lol.
The NFL preseason to Super Bowl lasts about 6 months. That means they were going about 6 months after the Super Bowl with no significant events or anything else to draw revenue. So the people who run the NFL wanted to do something that could drive revenue during that half-year when they aren’t playing games.
So they marketed the hell out of the draft. They turned it into a big media event so they could sell sponsorships and put it on TV so they can sell ads.
It’s entirely a manufactured event to drive revenue.
Ah. So it’s like Valentine’s day.
More like Prime Day or Black Friday.
While Valentine’s Day is heavily marketed and focused on consumer materialism now, it was actually celebrated as a religious holiday for well over a thousand years. It’s more an example of an existing celebration that got turned into something commercialized by capitalism.
Where as the NFL Draft, Prime Day, and Black Friday are “celebrations” wholly invented for the purpose of commercialized consumerism.
Ah yes. Often forget about black friday tbh. Haven’t cared about that in years lol.
Its such a big day they made a pretty okay Kevin Costner movie about it
I am an avid sports fan, and I will never understand the Draft worship. Like it’s important to get good players, sure. But I don’t need so spend a weekend watching about it. It’s just a way for the NFL to make money by selling ads.
Dude, you live in Green Bay. Shouldnt you have been fully indoctrinated in Packers Football by now? I thought they issued everyone a cheesehead hat at birth.
I’m a Minnesota wild fan. Couldn’t care less about football honestly.
So you have an axe to grind because of another sports success?
Or are you here “just asking questions”
Okay I fully agree with you. I am a very unsports bitch but I understand the draft craze for fans. OP seems very disingenuous.
Because sports ball is important to them. Will a good player be on their team? Will they finally drop that player no one likes? What team managed to snag that up and coming player.
All those things are relevant to someone.
It matters to sponsors. Big companies pay money to have their name slapped on everything, and then huge amount of marketing to ensure the max audience size means many more eyes in the sponsors crap. The NFL makes a killing on these sponsored events, so they will drive up the engagement wherever they are. And since sports matter to many Americans, this needs to REALLY SUPER matter.
I agree, who cares about teams picking players except for the players?
We don’t have the draft for team sports in the rest of the world and it creates these megateams of galactico superstars. There is also relegation in European football/rugby so teams can push into the upper echelons if they are extremely lucky in terms of getting amazing performances out of nominally mid players.
As someone who doesn’t give two shits about Football or competition sports, I honestly feel like a fucking alien sometimes. Like I literally couldn’t care less. I’ve tried to care. I just fucking don’t. It’s so hard sometimes because every male (either my friends or at work) talks about Sports and I’m just like “yea idk, I didn’t watch the game.” Then they stare at me like I’m a boring sack of shit. It sucks.
Its where you get hot takes to feel included in the sports conversations.
I’m a basketball fan, but the draft is a reset, and potentially a renewal for some teams that sucked last year. It’s a time for a fan to get hopeful (unless they drafted low or this year’s class is shitty).
Generally, it’s also an excuse to get really drunk, talk shit (online or in-person), and set up your fantasy league team. It signals the start of the season and gets you hyped up for pre-season matches featuring the new guys, even though you know pre-season doesn’t really mean shit.
There’s not much “special” about it, but if sports are a major hobby for you, following along whenever there’s an “event” is just something some people feel the need to do. Sports fans obsessing over the draft is kind of like people who are really into movies making a spreadsheet of all of the new movies for the year.
What else is there for people to do?
Read, learn something new, show empathy to other humans, glance at what politicians are doing (regardless of MAGA)
The draft is being held in your state this year, it’s the first time as far as I can recall, they want to make a good show of it so it might return some day.
How is it a show? Isn’t it just guys reading names off a sheet of paper?
The sheets of paper are getting filled in minutes before they’re announced,
The teams can trade their picks between each other,
It’s not known what teams are going to take what players, if my team (4) thinks team 1 is going to take player A, and team 2 isn’t interested in that player but team 3 is, if team 1 takes player b instead my team might talk with team 2 about trading draft pick positions so we can get that player.
There’s a lot of talking between a lot of professionals representing a lot of teams, the whole situation is very fluid, and it might change the course of your franchise (unless you’re the Jets)
It’s also 3 days of spectacle.
There’s constant running commentary and speculation, and biographical segments, and sometimes a little drama when surprising things happen, or expected things don’t, and a large group of people simply care enough that they want to know as soon as a pick happens, though how organic the growth of that group has been is certainly open for debate.
This is the best, most concise explanation in this thread, thank you!
