On a cold spring day, football traveled from Muskegon, Michigan, across the rough waters of Lake Michigan to Milwaukee.
Once there, the next trip was a group of people pedaling their bikes 160 miles north to the land of green and gold.
But this is more than just football. It symbolizes the NFL Draft being moved from Detroit's last home to its next home, Green Bay.
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Gov. Tony Evers visited Milwaukee on Tuesday and received a ceremonial ball from the ferry captain.
In other words, it's a takeover.
“As I've said before, I'm obviously a little biased, but I can't think of a better place to host the NFL Draft than the great state of Wisconsin and Green Bay,” Evers said. said at the ceremony.
The 2025 NFL Draft will be held in and around Lambeau Field and the Titletown area in April 2025. The event is expected to have an estimated economic impact of $94 million for the state.
Tuesday marked the official “delivery” of the draft to Wisconsin. It was also a nod to the Green Bay Packers' tradition of players practicing on bicycles before the season begins.
“We wanted to celebrate the draft transition from Michigan State to Wisconsin, and it makes sense to bring the football, so we put the pedal to the metal for the draft from Milwaukee to Green Bay and tried to bring the football to Green Bay. '' said Chris Kohorst. I work for the Packers.
About 20 bicyclists from the Packers organization, Travel Wisconsin, Wisconsin BikeFed and Green Bay area residents made the seven-hour trip. Riders stopped at notable locations in southeastern Wisconsin, including the Milwaukee Art Museum, Discovery World, Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center in Manitowoc, and Ray Nitschke Field.
Upon arriving in Green Bay with the football, an official “countdown clock” was scheduled to be unveiled in the Lambeau Field atrium.
The cold didn't seem to matter to the Cohorst brothers and other riders, many of whom raced around Milwaukee yelling “Go Pac Go!”
“This is an exciting time for Green Bay, and it's an exciting time for the state of Wisconsin,” Kohorst said. “Hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to Green Bay when the draft gets here. So it's a great way to kick off.”
The 2024 NFL Draft broke attendance records with more than 775,000 fans flocking to downtown Detroit for the three-day event in April. It's unclear whether we'll see such numbers in the 2025 NFL Draft, but the city and state are preparing for hundreds of thousands of football fans to flock to Title Town USA.
“We're confident that Packers fans in Wisconsin will see this as a bit of a test to see if we can further expand the draft and raise the bar even further,” NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miller said.
The draft has been held in New York City for 50 years, but in recent years it has expanded to Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Nashville and Arlington. Now, Green Bay, the smallest market in professional sports, will have that opportunity.
Packers President Mark Murphy said the draft will have “more than six times the impact of our single game.” At Tuesday's welcome ceremony, he said it was a chance for the city and state to be in the world's attention.
“It's going to be a week-long commercial for Wisconsin,” Murphy said. “It's really going to open a lot of eyes across the country and around the world.”
More than 50 million viewers watched the 2024 draft on television, according to the Associated Press. Wisconsin Department of Tourism Secretary Ann Sayers said he believes the state is ready for an event of this magnitude.
“Wisconsin has shown we can host large-scale events,” Sayers said. “We've got the Ryder Cup, we've got the U.S. Senior Open, we've got the RNC coming up. The draft is the next step in that evolution, and we're going to have the entire state participating.”
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