Mayor Rahm Emanuel used his Washington skill of lobbying hard for votes to secure the 2015 NFL draft for Chicago, and the deciding factor was the city’s commitment to hold a fan festival in Grant Park, sources close to the decision said Thursday.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s choice to move the draft, which has been held in New York’s Radio City Music Hall for the last nine years, came down to Los Angeles and Chicago, source said. Emanuel met with Goodell at the NFL’s Park Avenue offices in New York on June 3, according to his official calendar.
That meeting was followed up by numerous phone calls between Goodell and Emanuel, as well as “many, many visits” to Chicago by various NFL team representatives over the last several weeks, said a source close to the decision who was not authorized to speak publicly about the move.
The Bears also lobbied heavily for the event, which was last held in Chicago in 1964. Emanuel believes hosting the draft could boost Chicago tourism, which has been a focus of his administration.
“Would having the NFL draft here be good for the city and for the NFL? The answer is yes,” Emanuel told the Tribune in February. “The goal is to have a discussion.”
That discussion began with the consideration of multiple sites in Chicago, including the Arie Crown and Chicago theaters. The Emanuel administration and the NFL ultimately settled on the Auditorium Theater at Roosevelt University because it was the only site large enough to host the made-for-TV event that traditionally is packed filled with fans of teams coast-to-coast, sources said.
Chicago was thought to be at a disadvantage to host the event because unlike Los Angeles, it does not have a venue such as the Dolby Theatre that hosts the Academy Awards and other numerous televised events.
“The draft is basically a television show, and that theater is made for TV,” a City Hall source said of the Dolby Theater. “The Roosevelt auditorium isn’t.”
Emanuel’s administration worked with the Joffrey Ballet to find them a new performance space next June because they were scheduled to perform at the theater during that time, the source said. NFL and various team officials made numerous trips to Chicago to review the venue options and Grant Park, with Emanuel personally greeting staff members.
The difference-maker in Chicago winning the event was Emanuel’s pitch to create a fan festival in Grant Park, a component that previously has not been featured in NFL drafts, a source said. That proved to be the “major selling point” that won Chicago the event, said the source, who added that Goodell also found Chicago’s central location and rabid football fan base as major pluses.
“This site is a big leap because it’s different” for the NFL, the City Hall source said. “We worked hard to show Grant Park could be used as a major fan activation site like nothing they’ve done before.”
Emanuel pitched Grant Park as the location for network television studios covering the draft as well as an interactive fan zone, with various activities similar to those that have been held in cities hosting the Super Bowl, sources said.
