Flip on the TV Thursday night and you can find new episodes of 'Young Sheldon,' 'Law & Order' and 'Next Level Chef.' The NBA could have up to three Game 6s. And don't forget the Stanley Cup playoffs. None of those will outdraw the NFL Draft.
’s annual televised three-day draft extravaganza kicks off Thursday night on three networks — the Disney siblings ESPN and ABC, and the league-owned NFL Network.
If you’re interested in this year’s complicated matrix of on-air talent assignments, my colleague Richard Deitsch has a comprehensive guide to all of that and moreWhat fascinates me most about the draft — as a Cleveland native, I know the picks usually don’t matter for the rag-and-bone team I grew up watching — is how it has not only evolved into a made-for-TV spectacle but how it’s managed to maintain a big audience amid overall television usage declines.
Millions of people tune in to watch what is essentially an HR hiring process slicked up for TV. That’s what confused the NFL and then-commish Pete Rozelle when brand-new ESPN asked to televise the draft not long after the network launched in 1979. The league’s owners and the commissioner didn’t apparently think anyone would be interested, but eventually relented, and thus was born the NFL Draft Industrial Complex, with the 1980 draft airing live on ESPN., averaging an astounding 16.7 million viewers last season, even amid the current trend of cord-cutting chaos and viewership spreading to the endless entertainment options on linear and streaming TV. That’s why the NFL enjoys about $115 billion in long-term media rights deals.
The NFL’s popularity has trickled down to what are functionally bureaucratic talent acquisition and development processes that have been turned into media spectacles: Minicamps. Free agency. Franchise tags. Schedule releases. The combine. Training camps. Trade deadlines. Pro day workouts. It’s all on TV to varying degrees and covered by news outlets in general because the market demand for it is very real. Fans want this stuff, zealously. So here we are.
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