The rumors are true − the city of Cincinnati has expressed a desire to host the NFL draft.
On June 15 at Paycor Stadium in a 30-minute interview with four local media outlets, including The Enquirer, Cincinnati Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn alongside vice president Elizabeth Blackburn addressed the possibility of the NFL’s marquee offseason event coming to Cincinnati.
“We’ve expressed interest, as have many other cities,” Katie Blackburn said. “We are exploring it and seeing whether we can have an opportunity to do that. We would love it if we could. We would be excited about it. We’ll continue to work on it to see if it can happen.”
The NFL draft is heading to Washington, D.C., in 2027 and Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2028. After that, no decisions have been made as far as where it will go. The Bengals hope Cincinnati will be in the rotation.
There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done for Cincinnati to be awarded an event of this magnitude, with location and hotel proximity as the main focal points that need to be sorted out. Blackburn said there is a call with the NFL coming up in a few weeks to discuss further plans.
But for right now, even the possibility of it happening is exciting for Bengals’ ownership.
“We are going to do our best to let them know we have interest and go from there,” Blackburn said.
Pittsburgh broke the all-time attendance record for the draft’s first night with 320,000 fans in April when it hosted the NFL draft outside of Acrisure Stadium. If Cincinnati were to host the three-day event, it would be looking at an estimate of more than 600,000 spectators in attendance over the weekend. Officials will need to find a space that can host that many people with accessibility to hotels nearby.
There’s a lot of moving pieces, and the Bengals say they believe Cincinnati can handle this event.
“Cincinnati is such a great football market, and it is so central to so many fan bases, we internally feel really good about the vision for the NFL draft here if you think about all the football history in Ohio,” Elizabeth Blackburn said.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: NFL draft in Cincinnati? Bengals confirm city wants to host
Reporting by Kelsey Conway, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Kelsey Conway, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
