Frustration with Denver’s underdog status in bid to host NFL Draft
May 3, 2018, 6:44 PM
Just a few years ago, the magnificent vistas at Red Rocks earned the park and amphitheater national historic landmark status. But that still may not be enough of a draw to bring the NFL Draft to the flatirons of Morrison.
On Wednesday, Mike Klis of 9News reported that proposals from the City of Denver to bring the NFL Draft to Red Rocks in 2019 or 2020 face stiff competition from several other sites, and the bid is an underdog in comparison.
The NFL informed the Broncos in February that Denver had been selected as one of five finalists to host the annual first-year player draft either next year or the following year after that. Among the competition — Cleveland-Canton, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Nashville.
“It’s a competitive process, and we’re excited to move one step closer to bringing the NFL Draft to Denver,” Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis said at the time.
However, increasingly long odds to host the draft has left some frustrated and disappointed, including “Stokley and Zach” co-hosts Brandon Stokley and Zach Bye.
“Tell me a better setting than Red Rocks. I don’t get it. I was looking forward to it. I don’t understand,” Stokley said Thursday. “Once again, it just feels like Denver’s an overlooked sports town.”
The venue will never set any attendance records for the league, Bye said, but if it’s good enough for the likes of “the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead to play at Red Rocks, I’m pretty sure you can bring the draft.”
“Red Rocks adds another element that no other place is going to add. That should make up the difference of pure quantity,” Bye said. “It shouldn’t be about trying to pack as many people as you can in one particular spot. That’s not what it’s about for me.”
Several cities have hosted the NFL Draft, including Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. However, New York City hosted it for 50 consecutive years until 2015, when the draft was moved to Chicago.
Chicago again hosted the event in 2016, followed by Philadelphia last year, and most recently Dallas a week ago.
Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @johnnyhart7.
