About this time last year when the NFL announced that Nashville would be hosting the 2019 Draft, my husband sent me a text and said he wanted to go. This is one of his bucket list items, so when the draft was going to be three hours from where we live, it was a no-brainer. I started looking into where it would be held and booked a room a year in advance.
Day 1
Finally, after a year of waiting, the NFL Draft came to Nashville, Tennessee! With having two active kids it ended up that we had to split up and were only able to be at the draft as a family for the second day. Tom and Callahan took off at noon on Thursday and headed down so they could be there for the first night of the draft, which is obviously the biggest. I was tuned in at home watching the TV when I started getting texts that said “We hit the jackpot” and then another one followed about 30 minutes later that said “Turn on ESPN”. After waiting to hear what the jackpot was, I finally received these pictures.
It turns out that with the impending rain that they had decided to go over to the Symphony Hall and see if they could get a seat in there. That is where all the teams were set up and their picks were called into. The line was pretty long to get through security maybe because the hall was full. They really didn’t know what the reason was exactly. After waiting about 30 minutes an official person came out to talk to them and said that they were keeping an eye on the weather and they might be back to get them. At this point, they really had no clue what they were talking about. Another 30 minutes went by and they announced that they were going to take a group of fans down in front of where the general public viewing barricades were. They had to go through some security and got wrist bands that allowed them access to this particular area. That is where they watched the first 30 picks or so from.
In front of the area that they were standing was what is called “The Inner Circle”. That’s probably what you’ve seen on TV if you’ve ever watched the NFL Draft. It is reserved for season ticket holders. A lot of those people left after their team made their first pick. Since it is shown on TV they want to make sure those seats stay full and were bringing people into The Inner Circle to fill the seats. Tom noticed one of the On Air Crew members approaching fans and asking them if they would like to fill the seats. He decided to just ask the lady if they could. She asked what kind of fan they wanted to be and they said they would be any kind of fan that needed filled. There weren’t any seats in the Steelers’ section so they ended up in the Raven’s section. It wasn’t too long after they got moved to those seats that Roger Goodell came into the crowd and started talking to fans. Tom and Callahan were fortunate enough to meet him and get a picture with them.
Tom said that he was very nice. He even commented that Callahan’s hands were cold and asked if he had to stand in the rain long. He later circled back around and talked to them a second time. I know he has a lot of haters, but at least that night he was a very nice man.
While their original viewing spot was good, it definitely improved when the moved into The Inner Circle.
I think these smiles prove that Day 1, Round 1 of the NFL Draft 2019 was a success!
Day 2
After having such good luck for Day 1 of the NFL Draft we knew it would be hard to top that. Rece and I arrived into town about 3:00 Friday afternoon. Tom and Callahan had went to walk around The NFL Experience that was located outside Nissan Stadium (where the Tennessee Titans play) and around the main stage where they draft took place. There were all kinds of fun exhibits and games you could try your luck at. It was no surprise that it was pretty crowded and there were lines to do most of the things. They were able to grab this picture.
Rece and I headed down Broadway to the draft area. The amount of people was crazy. All of the bars along Broadway always have live entertainment but there were speakers on the streets playing music as well. It was basically one big party. After we made our way down there Tom text and told us to come to the security checkpoint to enter the draft. He though he had something worked out for us to view from the same area that they had started in the night before. By the time we got down to the checkpoint Tom met us and said that the group that was looking for people to fill seats were requiring all people to be 18 years of age or older. We figured we needed to come up with an alternate plan.
After some persistence on Tom’s part of trying to find a way to get us down front, we finally decided we needed to make our way to the general public viewing area. We were able to come in on a side street and at least be in the first block closest to the stage. We worked our way toward the front and then finally found a spot toward the street side where there was a ledge. This was our view.
This was not too bad of a spot considering there were 4 blocks filled with people behind us.
It was wall to wall fans supporting their team. We stayed here for the whole second round and then decided we would head over to the Symphony Hall to check it out.
There was no line to enter Sympony Hall like there had been the night before. We quickly got through security and walked right in. It was such a different atmosphere than being on the streets. It was so quiet in there. We were greeted by ushers that informed us that we could go down on the floor where the teams would call their picks in and stand or we could go upstairs to the viewing area. We started out on the main floor where each team had a desk set up.
After checking this area out for a while, we decided to go sit upstairs in the viewing area. After being on our feet for hours, that was a nice break. Technically you weren’t supposed to take pictures from the upstairs viewing area but I saw lots of people doing it, so I snuck this one.
We watched the whole third round from here. While it was not as exciting as it was from the street, it was really comfortable. It was neat to get the two different perspectives as well. As a side note, Symphony Hall is a beautiful building.
To round out Day 2 of the draft Tim McGraw put on a free concert. We made our way back down to Broadway and found a spot to watch that. I didn’t take any pictures of him performing, but it was a good concert. By the time we made it back to our room it was midnight.
That wraps up our 2019 NFL Draft experience because we had to leave Saturday morning and head to Martin, Tennessee for a baseball tournament. We made great memories that we will have forever.
If you are a football fan and you ever get the chance to attend the draft, I would highly recommend it. It was the biggest party I’ve ever been to. People would comment on your team and everyone seemed to support each other. Even with all the people, I never saw anyone get out of hand or a fight break out.
From what I read Nashville supported the draft well. It was estimated that over 500,000 people attended. It would not surprise me if they brought the draft back to Nashville again. If they do, we’ll probably be there!