As Pittsburgh prepares to host NFL Draft, Green Bay shares lessons learned from last year’s event

PITTSBURGH — Ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, we’re finding out how things went at the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay.

After all, we have their former quarterback and our hometown guy, who is now the Steelers’ head coach, leading the Packers for 13 seasons.

Now we’re ready to take the NFL Draft spotlight from Green Bay as it will be shining bright in Pittsburgh come April 23^rd.

“It doesn’t get much bigger than the NFL draft,” said Nick Meisner with Discover Green Bay.

He knows. Meisner helped to put it on last year in Green Bay as part of the visitor’s bureau for Brown County, Wisconsin.

“This is going to raise the profile of Pittsburgh like it has done for Green Bay and put it on the map for more tourists,” said Meisner.

362,000 people took in the NFL Draft there last year. Many of them came from places within a quick drive. That brought in over $72 million to the county. Green Bay is in $50 million more than projected.

Nick says a lot of the spending was concentrated around the draft footprint and Lambeau Field. The NFL commissioned local restaurants to be many of the food vendors inside.

“I think if you prepare properly, it could be a really great event for those businesses that are close,” said Meisner.

If you’re going to the draft in Pittsburgh and you’re worried about bathrooms and connectivity, Nick says don’t be. He says there were plenty of both.

As for parking, “It’s a challenge,“ said Meisner. “Parking is always going to be a challenge with this being a drive-market event. That’s more cars than you typically see.”

But Meisner notes there was a good system of ride sharing and bus drop-offs. He said getting around Green Bay was not super congested.

While getting in the NFL Draft areas is free, you do have to register with the NFL.

And though they did have to close the entrance once on the first night of the draft in Green Bay when they reached capacity, Meisner says they were able to redirect people into the field within 30 minutes.

“These people that are organizing this are experts, from the folks with the NFL, to the team and the Steelers, to your local organizing committee,” Meisner.

Channel 11 asked Jerad Bachar with Visit Pittsburgh what he learned from the last draft, but he says he took more cues from when it was in Detroit in 2024.

“Just because Green Bay is such a different environment for this event. In and around Lambeau Field, it’s just a much different environment,” said Bacher. “But Detroit is a much more comparable site to Pittsburgh just because they put this draft into a downtown area, the city core.”

“It was an amazing opportunity to showcase not just Lambeau Field but the Greater Green Bay Area,” said Meisner.

And that will most certainly be the same for the Burgh.

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