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ORLANDO, Fla. — Over the past decade, the NFL draft has bounced around from city to city. Sashi Brown hopes the league will soon consider Baltimore.
The Ravens’ team president told local reporters Monday at the NFL owners’ meeting that the franchise has begun talks with the league about hosting duties. Brown said the Ravens have talked with the Inner Harbor’s developers about using space between their properties and M&T Bank Stadium to host the event. The Orioles’ schedule could be an obstacle, as their season would be in full swing by late April, when the draft’s typically held.
“We think Baltimore’s a great venue for it,” Brown said. “We have to convince the NFL it’s the right venue for them. But we’ll put that pressure on ourselves to try to bring one to Baltimore in the relatively near future. They are already three, four years out. So we’re working on that, and certainly it is within our scope.”
From 1965 to 2014, the league held the draft in New York. But the three-day event has moved around to seven other cities in the past nine years, including Cleveland in 2021. Next month, the draft will head to Detroit for the first time. Next year, Green Bay, Wisconsin, will make its hosting debut.
In February, the Steelers announced that they’d submitted a bid for Pittsburgh to host the draft in either 2026 or 2027. Local tourism group VisitPittsburgh said the event could have an economic impact of $120 million to $160 million on the city.
“The draft has become such a major tentpole event for the league,” Brown said. “A lot of cities are interested in it.”
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Jonas Shaffer is a Ravens beat writer for The Baltimore Banner. He previously covered the Ravens for The Baltimore Sun. Shaffer graduated from the University of Maryland and grew up in Silver Spring.
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