2015 NFL Draft To Be Held In Chicago Or L.A.
(CBS) Chicago has made another round of cuts to host the 2015 NFL Draft.
Next year's big event will either be held in Los Angeles or Chicago, commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters yesterday at a Thursday Night Football panel, as fellow finalist New York City has been eliminated from the running.
The draft has been held in New York City every year since 1965, but Radio City Music Hall has scheduling conflicts next spring that prevent it from hosting on one of the NFL's preferred weekends -- likely April 22-25 or April 29-May 2, according to reports.
"We're focusing solely on Los Angeles and Chicago now," Goodell said, according to NFL.com.
"We had 12 cities that were interested. We felt the best thing to do was to focus on the three cities, because they had such a tremendous interest. There are very attractive aspects to each of those cities. Because we don't have the appropriate dates in May our focus is completely on Los Angeles and Chicago.
"They both have tremendous bids."
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel has previously expressed his desire to bring the NFL Draft to the Windy City. The McCormick Place and the Chicago Theater have been floated as possible venues in Chicago to host the draft, which has been held in Radio City Music Hall since 2006.
While no timetable is for certain, Goodell suggested a decision between Los Angeles or Chicago could be made by the end of the summer.
With monstrous TV ratings, the NFL is also still considering the idea of stretching the draft into a four-day event. It's currently a three-day event that runs Thursday-Saturday.
"We're talking about different concepts, primarily how to strengthen the last day and whether we should maybe push that back to the clubs a little bit more and allow the clubs to have a little bit more freedom as more of a club day," Goodell said, according to NFL.com.
"Maybe they would announce the picks from there. We're looking at everything under the sun, because there's a great interest in it, and we want to do something that's more responsive to our fans."