In the days after the league successfully staged its first Super Bowl in the New York-New Jersey area, owners of other NFL teams in cold-weather climates continued their lobbying efforts to land the sport's biggest game.
And for Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, it's about more than the Super Bowl. He would like to see other NFL-related events in the Windy City.
"I would say that there are two things in pro football I would love to see in Chicago, either one of them or both: the NFL Draft and the Super Bowl," Emanuel told the Chicago Tribune recently. "They have different advantages for the city given that we have neither one, both would be great attractions for the city to bring national attention. We'll work on both. There's something to the draft and there's something to the Super Bowl. I compliment the NFL for deciding to change to cold-weather cities."
The Super Bowl is one thing -- there are the tourism dollars and regional economic impact that come with hosting it -- but the draft doesn't have much upside beyond saying, "Hey, we hosted that thing once." It's a mostly made-for-television spectacle that involves watching the commissioner read names off a card.
That said, beyond finding a venue, there is little overhead to hosting the event and commissioner Roger Goodell said last May that the draft could eventually move to cities other than New York.
The 2014 NFL Draft will be held in May at Radio City Music Hall (it has typically been the last week of April), but for 2015 and beyond, Goodell suggested that "we will begin the process" of scouting other cities and venues to hold the three-day draft. And if Emanuel has his way, Chicago would be on the short list.
