[ARETE] Fw: Sport and Society - The NFL Draft

[richard crepeau]

Sport and Society for Arete
April 27, 2025

I stopped watching the NFL draft a few years ago, but of course it still cannot be avoided if you are a fan of American Sport, because the NFL is omnipresent and the draft has taken on mammoth proportions. This year three things stood out and became news: First, 205,000 NFL Fanatics made their way to the Draft held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, not a centrally located venue; Second, Mel Kiper’s meltdown over his own failure of prediction on the number one quarterback was one of those cringe worthy moments in television; and Third, the revelation that one high-drafted player should not have been a high draft pick because his arms were an inch too short.
So, I offer you a repeat of my Sport and Society essay from 2022 which summarizes my continuing views on this ludicrous spectacle.
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Some of you may remember when the word “draft” referred to
a movement of cold air through a warm room from an outside
source. Others will remember the Draft as that device
controlling compulsory military service. Some will think
“Draft lottery” the device designed to make the military
draft fair, although the young may think of the NBA Draft
Lottery. Others will think “draft” beer.

In the last two decades, the average sports fan knows that
the term refers to only one thing, the NFL Player Draft,
which is about to descend on Sportsworld after months of
NFL and ESPN driven anticipation.

Of all the insignificant events in the world of sport, this
is clearly the most overhyped and irrelevant of all. What
started as a means of distributing football talent evenly
across professional football has turned into a multi-day
meat market with associated activities that occupy nearly
the entire NFL and Julian calendar.

The Draft began in 1936 after Bert Bell suggested a draft
of college players as a way to help insure parity among NFL
franchises. The goal was not achieved, as a handful of
teams dominated the top of league standings over the next
decade. In addition, the Draft was not considered all that
important among college players, and many high draft picks
did not find football an attractive means of making a
living.

In the postwar period the NFL increased in popularity and
player salaries increased under the pressure of competition
from rival leagues. Then in the late 1960s, with the
creation of the American Football League (AFL) and the
resulting competition for football talent, the Draft took
on greater significance. In the AFL/NFL wars, the Draft was
manipulated as the AFL tried to get ahead in the
competition for players by holding a secret draft before
the NFL held its Draft. At one point, Al Davis signed Fred
Biletnikoff to an Oakland Raiders contract before drafting
him.

The merger of the two leagues ended the competition for
players, which increased the significance of the Draft in player acquisition. Scouting increased, and scouting of
African American players increased under the lead of the
AFL.

As with most things NFL, it is television that drives the
machine forward. The coming of ESPN in the early 80s and
the brilliance of Commissioner Pete Rozelle both pushed the
expanding popularity of the NFL. At some point, the
producers at ESPN, always looking for a way to fill the
programming schedule, discovered the NFL Draft. In fact.
fans discovered it first, started attending it, and dressed
in team gear and costume for it.

If fans were this interested in the NFL Draft, then clearly
it needed to be put on television. My guess is that no one
anticipated the madness that followed. The Draft became an
event, then became the event, and shortly the NFL marketers
jumped on the bandwagon. The Draft made the NFL a yearlong
topic of conversation among fans. Soon, there would be no
off-season for the NFL.

At ESPN, the Draft grew in importance and became a central
part of their NFL Programming. Analysts began appearing on
the network, first one, then two, and then a parade of
them. Mel Kiper became a household name, certainly better
known among fans than the vice-president of the United
States.
The Mock Draft was created to predict who would be
drafted by which team and in which round. Mock Drafts are
now as numerous as gators and cockroaches in Florida. The
first Mock Draft now appears the day after the real NFL
Draft, as it’s never too soon to look to the next season.

Sports Talk radio also played its part, and it soon became
apparent to hosts of these shows that football fans never
got tired of talking about football. Furthermore, NFL fans
were all experts ready to argue with other fan experts and
actual experts. These fans all knew they knew more than the
coaches and general managers of their favorite teams. Any
sports talk radio host knows that his three-hour slot will
never go quiet because football never goes away.

Those responsible for drafting players need all the
information they can get, and thus the NFL Combine was
born. Here, players who hope to be drafted and join the NFL
are brought together to display their talents and their
bodies. The players are weighed, measured, and tested in
multiple ways to create a warehouse of metrics to help the scouts and directors of player personnel make their draft
day decisions. Started in the 1980s, by combining a number
of scouting services, it became a permanent fixture in
Indianapolis in 1987.

Inevitably, this event too has been turned into television
programming. The creation of the NFL Network led to
offering live telecasts from the Combine in 2004 and was
important in establishing the new Network. ESPN came to the
Combine late, not offering significant live coverage until
the late teens.

It is a spectacle that has some dark echoes of the past.
The meat market, the objectification of the body, attention
to such minor details as percentage of body fat, have at
times, led me to wonder if the entire show should be at the
waterfront in Charleston.

But of course, it will not be, despite the latest draft day
development, namely the competition among cities to host
the Draft. Cities now bid on the event, with this year’s
Draft to be held in the glitz capital of the United State,
Las Vegas. Sponsors lineup to buy time on the broadcast of
the Draft that now runs seven rounds spread over three
days. In a city that was taboo for the NFL only a decade
ago, this year’s draft will saturate the Vegas landscape. The Circus Circus Hotel and Casino is now joined by a third
and much more important Circus.

The beauty of it all is that at least half of those drafted
in the first-round will not make a significant contribution
to the team that burned their first-round pick on them.
Despite this failure rate, over the next year two things
will happen: Teams will trade with each other to accumulate
early round Draft picks, and fans and the media will wear
us out with their endless discussions of the upcoming
Draft.
>From Mel Kiper, ESPN, and the NFL Network, Oh lord deliver
us!

On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau reminding you
that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser.

Copyright 2025 by Richard C. Crepeau

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