What the NFL Draft Costs and Asks of Us

The NFL Draft is a three-day event where the 32 teams of the National Football League select the best college players to build their futures. It asks nothing of us. And yet, what it is—and what it has cost—is worth serious consideration.

The 2026 NFL draft took place in Pittsburgh, PA. The commissioner Roger Goodell told fans that the Iron City set a new attendance record. Around 320,000 people showed up for the first night alone, and hundreds of thousands more attended across multiple days. Over 700,000 people were expected to descend upon this great sports town—which is home to roughly 300,000 people. In light of such logistics, Pittsburgh public schools moved from in person to remote learning Wednesday—Friday April 22-24. In short, this increasingly popular football festival is redirecting the path and process of American education. I would also like to call into question what this reveals about us as fans and as a society.

I’m a football fan, but I have no interest in attending the NFL Draft. While you may feel part of a “moment,” the experience is largely the same sequence repeated: a pick is announced, a player embraces family, walks the stage, and puts on a new team’s hat or jersey. You might see highlights, but not performance. And you’ll see this play out again and again over seven rounds.

This is very different from the live events we covet. At a concert or a game, something unfolds in real time—unpredictable, unscripted, alive. At the draft, there is no play, no competition, no moment of athletic brilliance. We’re not watching something happen; we’re watching a decision about what might happen.

I understand the appeal—the crowd, the shared anticipation, the hope for a team’s future. But as a live event, it leaves me cold. It celebrates projection over performance—and notably, it centers only male athletes, with no comparable stage for women’s professional talent.

While the NFL Draft asks nothing of us, it quietly rearranges quite a bit. Schools adjust. Cities bend. Resources shift. I understand the logistical challenges students might face getting to school given the crowds, but the deeper question remains: What is more important?

When I presented this story to my seniors, several admitted what many already know but rarely say out loud—that their education, what they actually learn and retain, is not the same when they are remote as when they are physically present. One student noted that the social interaction of school is ssential to both his learning and his well-being. School is not simply the transmission of information—it is formation, relationship, and more.

We already pause regularly: for holidays, for rest, for professional development. Those interruptions serve a purpose. But redirecting education to accommodate the NFL Draft however popular, signals something different. It suggests that what is foundational can be made flexible, even secondary, in the face of spectacle.

And that should give us pause and consider: an important question. The text book for Sports and Spirituality, On the Eighth Day: Toward a Catholic Theology of Sport—the required text for Sports and Spirituality posits two essential questions for readers and students to consider. 

First, with the combined occurrences of a global pandemic, ongoing wars, gun violence, and an unsettledness in Western society, should we even be playing sport, let alone writing books about it? Amidst the martyrdom of unprecedented numbers of Christians in the twentieth and twenty-first century world, is sport not too frivolous for Christians to really care about? Johnston sums up this critical introspection about the value of sport with his first question: “What the hell are they doing?” That is, should we be affording so much time to sport, especially when it does not always support human communities?  

In theological terms, we can speak about sport as sinful in many ways, or as a part of our fallen world. Whereas Catholics have often critiqued the sin of sport in its bodily injuries, over-commercialization, and physical violence, sport sociology analyzes more specifically deeper problems of sport. Forms of discrimination (e.g., race and gender), systemic issues (tied to globalization, sport systems, labor migration), and the use of human performance drugs are topics that require careful research and cry out for justice and righteousness. These issues cause Johnston to question, “What the hell are they doing?”

I know I am a teacher so I have my bias. I think education is not to be undervalued. Ever. I think it can and should be made a priority for all. Sadly, I think Johnston's question is relevant. And for what it's worth, I'd like to add one: Why can't the draft be on Saturday or Sunday?!

If you would like to talk more about this topic, consider the following:

1. Last year's host city, Green Bay cancelled class entirely. My students do want to know if those days were added on as snow days.
2. Many times, the men drafted do not become the athletes they were projected to be. Sometimes, the draft is dead wrong—Niners know this as much as any team.
3. How much does the average attendee at the draft spend to be part of the event?
4. My students and I talked about how hosting the draft and taking time off of school is similar and different to when our school was not open on the day of the San Francisco Giants' victory parade. NB: many teachers are still upset about that...

Photo Credits
Mendoza Moment
32 picks