Motor City broke a record. Detroit set a new NFL Draft attendance record with 700,000 fans and counting, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Saturday.
Detroit broke the record previously set in 2019 by Nashville, which drew 600,000 fans during the three-day event.
.@gretchenwhitmer announce that we have officially set a #NFLDraft attendance record‼️ pic.twitter.com/wAxPA2XgcL
– Detroit Lions (@Lions) April 27, 2024
Dawn Aponte, NFL head of football administration announced in his opening speech earlier Saturday, 550,000 fans were in attendance over the first two days. Detroit had already broken Nashville’s record of 200,000 fans each day for attendance in the Day 1 and Day 2 drafts. Commissioner Roger Goodell said this was a record 275,000 fans arrived on Thursday for the first day and another 230,000 people were there on Friday evening.
“So in Detroit, you’re 100,000 points away from the all-time scoring record,” he said at the time.
Rounds 4-7 will take place Saturday, televised on ESPN/ABC and NFL Network and in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.
What this means for Detroit
For almost 20 years, Detroit has been showing the world that it is a football city, within a football state. Detroit hosted Super Bowl XL in 2006, about four years after the opening of Ford Field, downtown’s new centerpiece. The city was there for this, as for everything related to football.
So while it wasn’t surprising to see the city set a record this weekend in the NFL Draft, the fact that Detroit was able to show America just how much growth and progress has been taking place during this period is probably the coolest part. Not only was the crowd huge, but the city was beautiful. Downtown was clean, tons of money were flowing in the streets and the event gave one of the toughest and proudest cities in the country a chance to shine. It didn’t hurt that the Lions were actually good.
It was an incredible weekend in Motor City. — Nick Baumgardner, Senior NFL Writer
Required reading
(Photo: Grégory Shamus / Getty Images)