The National Football League is reportedly open to moving the annual first-year player combine away from Indianapolis to the highest bidder, per WISH-TV in Indianapolis. Indy is the very city in which the yearly combine has been held for each of the last 35 years.
Indianapolis is set to host the NFL combine again in 2022, but beyond that, the league is allowing other locations to make bids in order to bring the “festivities” (and we use that term lightly) to town. Perhaps this also signals a change coming in the combine to make it more media-friendly and fan-friendly than ever before.
Every spring, the pre-draft season kicks into high gear with the combine. It’s a time in which reporters get to hear from every head coach in the league along with numerous general managers before the offseason gets underway and a new league year opens up with free agency. In addition, hundreds of prospects at various positions from quarterbacks to punters are brought in to be interviewed and ran through a series of drills by teams looking to fill out their draft boards.
The NFL combine might be reinvented over the next few years.
The combine is a popular event for NFL Draftniks, but beyond that, it’s largely a series of timed drills, medical exams, one-on-one interviews, and a central meeting for the league’s personnel to come together. That’s why it’s a bit odd for the league to consider moving it around like the actual first-year player draft, which comes later in the spring, as that event is known for being a public-facing event around which live music is played, family activities are planned and the like.
The NFL combine runs for nearly a week given that they have to parade so many positions through Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and make sure everyone is seen up close by each team. During that time, it’s possible the NFL would like potential host cities to open up some aspects of the event to fans and include a plan for entertainment and hospitality around it all. Given the massive popularity of the NFL, nothing would surprise us at this point.
Given that Kansas City is already going to host the NFL Draft in 2023, it makes sense for the city to also bid on hosting other NFL events in order to increase tourism and bring awareness to the region itself. Kansas City is already one of the NFL’s most passionate fan bases and would serve as a potentially great home for the combine and other NFL events.
What a bid would entail and how the league wants to stage the event in future years remains to be seen, but the same-old approach in Indianapolis looks like it will soon be a thing of the past.