NFL draft set to go private in late April

WAS TO BE IN LAS VEGAS

Another popular and well-attended sports event has fallen victim to COVID-19: the NFL draft in Las Vegas, April 23-25.

The draft will still be held, the league announced Monday morning, but it will not be open to the public. Instead, one of the NFL’s marquee events will be watched by fans only on television.

“The NFL is exploring innovative options for how the process will be conducted and will provide that information as it becomes available,” the National Football League said in a statement. “Public NFL draft events in Las Vegas next month will not take place.”

The draft, which was to being hosted by the Las Vegas Raiders, was expected to draw tens of thousands of fans to The Strip. The freshly relocating team will start next season in Oakland but then move into its new US$1.9-billion stadium in Nevada in September.

But on Sunday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released a new guidance limiting gathers to no more than 50 people for the next eight weeks.

“Health and safety has always been our top priority,” Raiders owner Mark Davis said in a Tweet reported by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. “So despite it being a major disappointment, this was the right decision.”

The decision to cancel the live event was, in the words of commissioner Roger Goodall, “in consideration of current information related to COVID-19 and guidance from medical experts such as the CDC, and in co-ordination with public authorities in Nevada and the City of Las Vegas.”

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