“I think they did a great job,” Wood said. “Obviously, they have a special area there with Broadway and the bars and restaurants. I think what we learned, is we need to do something, if we’re going to do it here, that’s really iconically Detroit. We have a few ideas how we may do that. We’re in the running a couple years from now, I think, to still have an opportunity to bring the draft here. We can’t do what they did in Nashville, but there are things that we might be able to do that are in that vein and have the whole downtown showcased and probably use multiple venues.”
The 2020 draft will be in Las Vegas, in conjunction with the Raiders beginning to play there next year. The league is expected to award the 2021 draft at next week’s league meeting, and the owners may even decide to get a jump start on planning for the 2022 draft by awarding that at next week’s meeting as well. The Lions are hoping to get Detroit in the mix soon.
So they had enough hotels in 2006 to host a Superbowl but not enough for a draft?
Not only that, there are a lot more hotels downtown now than there was back then.
I heard someone make the argument about more people attend the draft than the Superbowl because it is all teams vs. 2 teams. But I was downtown Detroit for the Superbowl there and it was by far a majority of locals there than out of towners. The draft might get 300,000 people into Detroit, but I would say at least 75% will be local.