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Kansas City Hosted Largest NFL Draft Site in History

by Mary Rooney | May 09, 2023

Kansas City served as the  2023 NFL Draft city, which was the biggest event site in the event’s 88-year history .With a footprint of approximately 3.1 million square feet, the 2023 event experience boasted 1 million additional square feet compared to its last two events in Cleveland and Las Vegas.

The three-day event  occurred April 27-29, and attracted more than 312,000 fans.  The event generated an estimated economic impact of $125 million in the Kansas City area’s economy.

The NFL constructed the largest Draft Theater structure to highlight the façade of Union Station Kansas City, an iconic landmark in the region that serves as one of the oldest operating Amtrak stations in the U.S. The 378’ x 176’ stage was about the size of a football field and boasted 10,018 square feet of screens and 1,433 LED panels.

With the 2023 NFL Draft now over, crews are cleaning up materials that were used to put on the massive show. NFL Green, the league’s environmental program, is donating large quantities of materials used to build the Draft Theater and Draft Experience to more than 20 Kansas City-area organizations.

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