The NFL will not be hosting its draft in Las Vegas this year, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.
The draft won’t be postponed, however — it is still slated to go ahead from April 23-25, like always. The league had already canceled all public events around the draft due to the nationwide outbreak of COVID-19, a strain of the coronavirus. But now it appears it won’t be hosting anything in Las Vegas at all.
According to the report, the NFL will host the 2020 draft in a TV studio setting, then will cut to the individual teams’ headquarters for them to make the pick.
Will players then Skype in? Are we doing a big Zoom call? ESPN Facetiming the first overall pick? Unclear!
The league announced Monday that the draft remained on schedule and that all public events in Las Vegas had been canceled. It wasn’t entirely clear, however, whether it might still be some type of scaled-down version in that city. But the two sources confirmed Saturday that the event will no longer take place there.
It’s the right move, clearly, but even with the scaled down version, it’s hard to imagine how the league could televise the draft without dozens upon dozens of people present. Camera operators, producers, on-air talent, makeup artists, grips, set builders … the numbers on any studio show quickly add up.
It’s unclear if the NFL plans on testing all these people or not, or how they can justify a gathering of that size during a coronavirus pandemic.
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