What You Need to Know About the NFL Draft in Nashville

ATLANTA – After drafts in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas, Nashville is up next for the 2019 NFL Draft.

And now we know much more about what the NFL and the city have planned.

First, the biggest news:

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• The main NFL Draft stage will be on First and Broadway. Draft picks on the main stage will take place the evenings of April 25 (Thursday) and April 26 (Friday) and during the afternoon of April 27 (Saturday).

• Schermerhorn Symphony Center will be host to Selection Square, which features the team tables where representatives from each club will make their draft selections.

• The NFL Draft Experience, a three-day football festival, will be held in the parking lots and areas surrounding Nissan Stadium.

• The NFL Draft Red Carpet will take place on April 25 (Thursday) at The Green at Riverfront Park.

• Concerts with “high level talent” are being planned for on the main stage on Broadway all three days, and on another stage across the Cumberland River. The performers will be announced at a later date.

• Admission is free. There will be limited seating areas (and some VIP areas), but the idea is most fans can stand, and walk.

• The NFL and the city are expecting crowds approaching 300,000 for the weekend in an area organizers are calling the largest festival footprint ever for an NFL Draft.

“I think every year we have raised the bar, and I am incredibly confident that in Nashville, we’ll raise it again,” said Matt Shapiro, Vice President, Event Strategy & Integration at the National Football League. “Just how special that downtown area is, and the energy that comes on every single day of the week, it is a really exciting prospect to think about bringing the energy and excitement of our draft to an area that on its own has that level of energy and excitement. I think it has that multiplier effect that puts the draft at a level we’ve never seen before.”

Butch Spyridon, President/CEO Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, can hardly wait.

Spyridon is scheduled to be in Atlanta today at a booth in the Super Bowl LIII Media Center, where he’ll join a team working to publicize the upcoming draft, and Nashville.

“I am extremely excited,” Spyridon said. “It will be interactive, immersive, entertaining and free. With free being the buzzword. This is that icing on the cake that says: Nashville can do this as well as anybody. That is what motivates me as much as anything – that the city can shine at the highest level.

“The campus is going to be user friendly. There’s going to be world class entertainment, 1,000 media and three networks carrying this thing. It has everything we’ve all worked for to put Nashville on the biggest stage we can up to this point.

“Come to Nashville, and join in the party.”