April 16, 2007
Draft parties keep teams connected
By Pete Williams
Correspondent
When NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell steps to the podium at Radio City Music Hall to announce that the Oakland Raiders are on the clock, millions of NFL fans will be watching on television.
About 100,000 of them will be watching from official team draft parties at NFL stadiums, practice facilities or sports bars. With either modest or no admission fees, draft-day events are not big moneymakers, team officials say, but they do allow clubs to reconnect with fans during the long lull between the Super Bowl and the regular season.
Just as the NFL draft focuses the national sports spotlight away from the NHL playoffs, the NBA playoff push and the first month of baseball, NFL teams have discovered that draft parties can steal the thunder of other sports locally.
“They help keep football top-of-mind all year long,” said Tammy Fruits, vice president of sales and marketing for the Kansas City Chiefs. “It’s one of our first in-person opportunities to start talking to fans for the upcoming season.”
“By April, fans are starving for information on their favorite team and the appetite for events such as these is huge,” said Rusty Hawley, vice president of marketing for the New York Giants, who typically draw 7,000 fans to their draft party. Tickets for this year’s event are $25 for adults and $15 for children.
The draft broadcast is the main draw, though the slow pace of the event means teams must provide additional attractions. The Chiefs, who hold their draft party at the Truman Sports Complex near Arrowhead Stadium, are among the few teams that have season tickets available for sale. Some clubs bring in current and former players to sign autographs. With most teams having just completed cheerleader tryouts, the new squads are brought in to perform. Team radio partners often are on hand for live broadcasts. Tours of the stadium are sometimes offered.
Some teams, perhaps as a reminder to fans that preseason mini-camps soon will start, offer fans an opportunity to work out by staging early morning draft-day 5K runs. The Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers will host runs this year. The Houston Texans and Atlanta Falcons have held runs in the past.
The Giants’ race is backed by a number of team sponsors, including Wachovia, Verizon Wireless, Budweiser, Dunkin’ Donuts and Pepsi. Verizon Wireless is the primary sponsor of the Buccaneers’ 5K.
“Draft day is a great opportunity for sponsor activation at a time when no football is being played,” said John Vidalin, vice president of sales and marketing for the Texans. “With the possible exception of the NBA draft, other leagues don’t have that opportunity.”
The Cleveland Browns even have created logos and slogans for their draft-day event in recent years. This year’s slogan is “Where will you be when the Browns are on the clock?”
One of the more popular elements to the Browns party is a “locker room sale” of game-worn uniforms. The Browns also offer a special $150 pre-party ticket package that includes breakfast and a presentation by a Browns official or player in the locker room. Proceeds benefit the Cleveland Browns Foundation. General admission tickets to the event cost $15. VIP tickets for this year’s event have sold out.
Fans hoping for a glimpse of the internal workings of “war rooms” will be disappointed, for the most part. Teams are notoriously secretive about their pre-draft preparations and don’t want to let anyone get a view of their draft board. In instances where the team’s war room and party are held at the same facility, someone from the personnel side usually will visit with the fans once the first-round pick is made, though most general managers and head coaches delegate that role.
Occasionally, someone gets to see the war room. Miller Brewing, the presenting sponsor of the Texans’ draft party, is running a sweepstakes promotion that will give a winner a glimpse of the war room on draft day.
The Falcons, like most teams, don’t provide access to the war room to anyone beyond the personnel circle, with the exception of a few friends of team owner Arthur Blank. The team does hold a dinner for sponsors, suite holders and club-seat holders the Thursday before the draft in which members of the scouting staff provide insight on the process.
The Falcons also offer perhaps the best draft-day contest. Starting two weeks before the contest, fans can enter online the 32 players they expect to be selected in the first round; team and position is irrelevant. The winner receives $200,000 — double last year’s prize, which went unclaimed.
Roddy White, the Falcons’ director of event marketing, said there can be multiple winners and that the prize will be raised $100,000 for next year if nobody wins. The team’s draft party will be held at the Fox Sports Grill in downtown Atlanta, far from the team’s suburban headquarters in Flowery Branch.
“It’s all about brand extension, especially this time of year,” said White, who shares a name with the wide receiver the Falcons drafted in the first round in 2005. “With only 10 home games, we have to look for opportunities to extend our calendar throughout the year.”
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