The NFL Draft is Wasteful

The NFL Draft is Wasteful

The National Football League, and other professional sport leagues, hold a draft every year. This consists of each team in the league selecting the best players available in their opinion who declare for the draft. In this process, the NFL and the other leagues who participate make a big deal out of it. This year, the NFL draft is held in Philadelphia, home of the Philadelphia Eagles. It is the first NFL draft where the venue is being built and held outside on the stairs of the Art Museum. Also, the NFL is having a new event called “The NFL Draft Experience”. This will be an outdoor experience that is free to the public that will serve as a convention like atmosphere. This will take over the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia and allow closures to occur. The National Football League’s draft process is a waste of time and money because it doesn’t benefit the city nor the audience in attendance.

The NFL draft has seven rounds over the course of three days. Essentially, each team has one pick per round and in almost the same order. Sometimes teams trade their picks to one another for a higher pick, lower pick, or for current players. This means that teams may not have picks in a certain round which leaves their fans waiting until their next pick. Even during the actual draft, teams are allowed to trade their picks away to gain more picks or to move up in a spot where they can pick a certain player before another team can. “beyond the top pick, anyone watching only really cares about who their team chooses.  So the eager fan sits and listens to all the MC's who are just reading from media packets and speculating on the shape of a football for an hour while you wait for you team's pick.” (Brian Wolff, Bleacher Report) Fans are only watching the draft so they can see who their next star player will be to help fill a certain position on the team. They are eager to see when their pick is and the lead up to it. Just as their team is on the clock, the team trades away their pick. This causes for the fans to get upset to have to wait for when their team picks again. This may occur over and over again, until the pick actually is made. Once it is made, the excitement lasts for a short period of time. This is boring for everyone. Majority of the audience doesn’t care about the other selections. They only care about their own. Even when the fan’s team is on the clock, they still have a long period of time to wait until the pick is actually made. Not only that, but the broadcasters are still talking about the previous picks because now it is day three and they can’t keep up. The entire process is just boring and a waste of time.

Philadelphia is hosting the NFL draft in 2017. They are closing a major part of the city to allow the creation of the draft to happen. Having closures from this makes the traffic increase and gets the city’s population frustrated by what they are doing. There are already tons of construction happening in the city, so this is not helping anyone get to where they need to be any faster. A good portion of Philadelphia does not care for football even though the city has a huge fanbase for the Philadelphia Eagles. This means that the draft is irrelevant to them and is just making their commute worst. Not only all this, but it is costing Philadelphia a lot of money. “The city will shell out $500,000 for the 2017 NFL Draft Experience coming to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway this month. That’s only a fraction of the full cost of the event – an estimated $25 million. The NFL will cover $20 million, and the rest, $5 million, will come from private funding secured by the city.” (Claire Sasko, Philadelphia Magazine) The city of Philadelphia’s education is falling. The school district cannot afford their teachers’ salaries and has major budget cuts every year. Recently, a lot of schools have been closed because they couldn’t afford to stay open. The school district needs money for the children, and their education. Instead, the city of Philadelphia decides to host the NFL draft, and spend $500,000 on it. The city barely earns any of it back from revenue and loses it all in the process. Building the venue does not help either because the venue’s left over material won’t get recycled anywhere else. No education is being helped and not even construction is going faster. This is a waste of time for the other people of the city, and a waste of money for the city itself.

Not only is it a waste of time during the draft, but the lead up period as well. The fans aren’t the only ones participating the in draft by showing up and cheering for their team. There is a whole group of people for every team that is working long hours just to select a player a round, if they have that many picks. The General Manager and other personnel work long and hard to come up with a scheme of selecting the player that is right for them. Not only that, but scenarios in which other teams select their player before they can. The process is long and hard for these people. “The pre-draft excessiveness starts in January with the Senior Bowl, where each team sends its GM, scouting staff and coaching staff. Then in February comes the Combine, where teams send 35 or so employees to Indianapolis for an expensive week of flights, hotels and meal costs, all for an over-hyped event. Then in February comes the Combine, where teams send 35 or so employees to Indianapolis for an expensive week of flights, hotels and meal costs, all for an over-hyped event.” (Jeff Diamond, Ex- General Manager: Sportingnews.com) Teams are put to the test to which players they really want out of the draft. Their draft process is long and hard. They have 81 days until the draft after Super Bowl. The NBA only has 4  days after the finals. That is absurd that the scouts have to do all this research on a couple of players that they are picking. They are pushed to the limit to find the right guy. Even so, sometimes they have the perfect plan they developed and then all of a sudden, another teams do something no one expects and take the guys that this one team had planned for. Now they are all in panic mode and are screwed up. This entire process, for what, nothing. The entire time they are doing this and now they just end up not being able to do what they wanted to do. Even during the scouting process, it is a waste of money. They have to travel everywhere to meet with the guys and learn their skill. That isn’t free of charge. They have to pay for it. Altogether, this draft is a waste for both the fans, and the people behind the draft too.

The NFL draft is doesn’t benefit anyone due to it being a waste of time and money from both ends. The fans are bored waiting for their pick to happen and don’t care about the other teams. The cities hosting the event have to pay a big fee just to host it. It could be going towards other important things like education, but the decision is already made. Even the personnel behind the draft process for each team is bothered by this. They work long and hard to pick someone who isn’t on the draft board no more. The NFL draft is just a waste of time and money for everyone.

Work Cited:

|, Claire Sasko. "NFL Draft Will Cost Philly $500K." Philadelphia Magazine. N.p., 13 Apr. 2017. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.phillymag.com/news/2017/04/13/nfl-draft-cost-philly-500k/>

Jeff Diamond Contributor @jeffdiamondNFL Published on Apr. 6, 2017 Apr. 6, 2017. "NFL Draft period's annual overkill is bad for GMs, prospects alike." Sporting News. N.p., 06 Apr. 2017. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. <http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/news/nfl-draft-2017-date-time-process-schedule-interviews-team-visits-overkill/19hccqz4u6g401vba1vntgyh5d>.

"The NFL Draft Probably Won’t Have Much of an Economic Impact on the City." Crossing Broad. N.p., 24 Apr. 2017. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. <http://www.crossingbroad.com/2017/04/the-nfl-draft-probably-wont-have-much-of-an-economic-impact-on-the-city.html>.  
Wolff, Brian. "Why the NFL Draft Is Boring." Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report, 11 Apr. 2017. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/162267-why-the-nfl-draft-is-boring>.

I believe that this was my best 2fer that I have ever written because I felt that I gave my all for it. Personally, writing 700 words is a lot when you think about it. For this 2fer, I took it to the next level and wrote 1300 words. More than a 2fer needs to be, but I had a lot to talk about considering I felt passionate about the subject. I will say that this 2fer is actually me playing devil’s advocate because I do enjoy watching the draft and going to it. I had to write an essay with a different point of view than my own which is the first time I did ever in a 2fer. Since I could produce a well done 2fer from someone’s opinion, I think that this my best 2fer because of it.