Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Caesars Entertainment ecstatically hosts the 2022 NFL Draft after a prolonged wait

NFL Draft Theater

Wade Vandervort

Workers construct the NFL Draft Theater on April 4.

Caesars Entertainment was rushing to finish construction on its $350 million conference center, Caesars Forum, in time for the start of the planned 2020 NFL Draft in Las Vegas.

That ended up being unnecessary due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which postponed the draft’s Vegas debut for two years. Caesars Forum has now been up and running for more than a year and will serve as the de facto home of the 2022 NFL Draft from April 28-30.

“Caesars Forum is still effectively new,” says Sean McBurney, regional president of Caesars Entertainment and former general manager of Caesars Palace. “This is still a kickoff in some ways.”

The draft’s main theater, where picks will be announced and late-night concerts will take place, is set up just steps outside Caesars Forum and stretches back almost to the base of the High Roller observation wheel. Adjacent to the stage will be the league’s NFL Draft Experience, an area stretching across three parking lots to the east of the Linq Promenade outdoor mall. No public draft festivities will be held inside Caesars Forum, but the space will house essential support infrastructure such as media workrooms.

Beyond this weekend, holding such a high-profile event is expected to assist in the venue’s marketability. The convention industry has been slower to recover from the pandemic than other tourism-based segments of the Las Vegas economy, so Caesars Forum has yet to host a major event. The draft will “take everything to another level,” McBurney says.

“No event has been more thoroughly planned than the draft,” he says. “It’s literally years in the making.”

The extra time allowed Caesars to capitalize on being the center of the three-day party. McBurney says the company made sure many plans—including recent high-profile restaurant openings like Nobu and Vanderpump á Paris at Paris and Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux at Harrah’s—were done with the draft timeline in mind.

Click to enlarge photo

The NFL Draft red carpet stage gets set up at Bellagio on April 23.

“There’s going to be an energy here like a New Year’s Eve, like a Super Bowl,” McBurney says, pointing out that beyond Caesars, “there are a lot of new experiences across the city as well.”

As with other major events that have taken place in Las Vegas over the years, the various resort companies will work in tandem to host the swarm of visitors. On Thursday’s opening day, select draft hopefuls will walk a red carpet on a stage over the Fountains of Bellagio.

The space between Caesars Forum and the fountains covers more than 1 million square feet, making it the largest draft footprint in the history of the event. MGM Resorts International operates the Bellagio and is typically Caesars’ top competitor, yet the two rivals are teaming up to welcome the throng of football fans.

“If you have different properties pulling against each other, it’s hard to make everything we do happen,” says Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “This destination has a history of understanding that we’re going to all work together to bring customers here.”

Caesars Entertainment will go down as the draft’s official host, and it’s a long time in the making after the company signed a partnership deal with the NFL more than three years ago. The 2021 NFL Draft was already promised to Cleveland, so when 2020 got scrapped, Las Vegas received the 2022 make-up date.

“It’s going to be a draft like nobody has ever seen,” McBurney says.

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.