Green Bay-area leaders eager to showcase region to NFL draft visitors

GREEN BAY – Brown County community leaders are eager to showcase the Green Bay area in conjunction with the National Football League draft to be held at Lambeau Field in 2025.

"The stars are really well-aligned to put our best foot forward," said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. "A lot of people are familiar with the designation from U.S. News & World Report as the No. 1 city in the U.S. in terms of livability. This really gives us a great opportunity and a big stage to showcase everything we have to offer."

NFL owners voted on May 22 to award the draft, the league's largest non-football event, to Green Bay. The effort was led by the Packers and tourism bureau Discover Green Bay, with assistance and support from local governments and organizations.

The event is expected to generate 240,000 visits over three days and spur $20 million in local economic impact and $94 million impact statewide. In addition, the community will benefit from the month-long buildout and the hundreds of personnel brought in by the league, TV networks and their contractors.

Brad Toll, president and CEO of Discover Green Bay, said it might be the largest event ever to come to Green Bay.

"It's a huge opportunity for us to showcase why this is such a great place to live, work and play. And if not just this place, the whole region," said Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach. "Now we're going to have 250,000 people that are going to come and visit us. Maybe we'll get a few that will be interested in wanting to live here, long term. It's a great opportunity."

Getting the support from all of the county's municipalities was one of those rare events that might be a building block for the future, Genrich and Streckenbach said.

"In addition to the event itself, it's really an opportunity for us to come together as a community over the next couple of years and tick a few things off the list in terms of community priorities we'd like to get done, so we can put our best foot forward when we are on this national stage," Genrich said.

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"I think the Packers are one entity we can definitely rally around. And I think, to a person, everybody in elected office and at Discover Green Bay and just members of the community understand the opportunity that this presented."

A number of people over the last several days called the draft "a big lift," as in it will take some effort to put it on.

"This is a big lift for us, but I was at the press conference and looked at (developer) Michael Cantor, who was standing next to me, and I said, 'Michael, this is Green Bay, we’ll just do it,'" said Mary Kardoskee, Ashwaubenon village president.

The area will require help from around the state, given the size of the event, she said, much like Milwaukee requested help when it was scheduled to host the COVID-cancelled Democratic convention. There will be the advantage of having the NFL in charge of all details of the event.

"We just have to figure out how we are able to do what they delegate to us," Kardoskee said.

Seven municipalities passing a resolution saying they support the same thing doesn't happen often, Streckenbach said.

"Whether we talk about the engineering school (at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay) and what that looks like in 25 years in terms of exporting out and creating solutions that have a global impact, or the fact that we finally got a (southern) bridge built, or what's happening here with the NFL and the Packers, they only happen in small windows. And whether or not the communities together will determine whether those things happen. Often times, communities are not together and those things don't happen."

One of the other things that communities came together on was a key to getting the draft, the relatively new Resch Expo exhibition hall, which opened in 2021.

Both Charles and Streckenbach noted that the Resch Expo was considered a key component to a successful draft bid. NFL representatives toured the Resch complex before the draft decision and will be back again to finalize plans now that the draft was awarded.

"We knew in order to attract an event of this magnitude, we needed a building like that," Toll said.

The Resch was designed with mega events like the draft in mind, Streckenbach said.

"When they designed Resch Expo, that’s a Chicago or Denver building. It was designed to be wow!" Kardoskee said.

Now, PMI, which manages the Resch Center and Resch Expo, is waiting to hear what its role will be. That will be determined by the NFL, which is fully in charge of the draft.

"We hope to host many things in this complex and the NFL draft was always top of mind. We don't know what role and how the buildings will be used," said Terry Charles, senior corporate communications manager for PMI. "It's going to put us on the biggest showcase you can possibly imagine."

That showcase could be a big boost to the area, Kardoskee said.

"There are people in the United States, they don’t even know Green Bay is on the water. They will be able to see our beautiful area. We are more than just football," she said, naming off a long list of other attractions, among them Bay Beach, NEW Zoo, Discover Green Bay's new visitors center, the National Railroad Museum, Oneida Nation and Heritage Hill.

Streckenbach said he's hoping some of those visitors like it so much here they decide to stay.

"We have low unemployment, right around that 2.3%, and we have employers here all raising their hands saying 'we're ready to hire.' Brown County's ready to hire. We have all kinds of great, family-supporting jobs that are available for people to move here. In the end, that's one of the byproducts of having an NFL draft in your community."

Contact Richard Ryman at rryman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichRymanPG, on Instagram at @rrymanPG or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardRymanPG/.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay-area leaders eager to showcase region to NFL draft visitors