By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
As Thursday’s NBA Draft showed, leagues staging player draft events in host cities have become big business and big opportunities for sports leagues to soak up media attention when the season is finished.
It’s also become an opportunity for the host cities to get some free PR like Nashville did April 25-27 when it staged the 2019 NFL Draft.
Las Vegas is up next to host the NFL Draft April 23-25 in 2020 and the Raiders have already started talking with the NFL and the local organizing group. The draft event will be held near the Strip and the Raiders are chatting with league officials and local event organizers to determine how to work in the construction site of the Raiders’ $1.8 billion stadium that is set to open at the end of July in 2020.
“We are working with the league and the local organizing committee on draft preparation,” Raiders President Marc Badain said.
“We are figuring out creative ways to incorporate the stadium but it will still be an active construction job at that point so it will not be the venue for the draft,” Badain told LVSportsBiz.com Friday.
It will be interesting to see how the stadium construction site will be blended into Las Vegas hosting the 2020 NFL Draft. When the draft is held in April, the new stadium will still be three months away from opening.
But the Raiders have used the outer parts of the stadium site on the west side of Interstate 15 across from Mandalay Bay to host events like a construction foreman announcing a Raiders fourth round draft pick on April 27.
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