Best of KC 2023: Draft fever offers a glimpse of our world stage prowess
NFL Draft 2023 at Union Station. // Photo by Chris Ortiz
This month, we published The Pitch’s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can browse the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some of our current favorite things about Kansas City in 2023. We’ll be publishing these items online throughout November.
Kansas City became the seventh city to host the National Football League Draft from April 27-29, drawing 312,000 fans to the National WWI Museum and Union Station campus and generating $164.3 million for the local economy.
The latter figure topped the widely circulated projection of $100 million, while the former swung right on the prospect of bucking the attendance record of 600,000 set by Nashville in 2019. With a footprint of 3.1 million square feet, the NFL Draft was also notable in that it served as the largest site in the event’s 88-year history (and also marked the first time the ceremonies occurred in the same city that won the Super Bowl that year).
With visitors praising the experience, the city has expressed interest in hosting the event again in the future. Before that can happen, though, we can’t pretend we didn’t want the 2026 World Cup—because we got it. With games set to be hosted at a revamped Arrowhead Stadium that year, KC is busy setting in motion plans to shine on an international scale, with efforts bound to ramp up as the date gets closer. In late September, a delegation of over 30 FIFA organizers visited the City of Fountains to assess our preparation.
Local businesses are now vying to become base camps for national teams looking to centralize themselves between the 16 North American host cities. KC is one of 11 such cities in the United States. Like it or not, major sporting events look to remain a fixture in our city for decades to come.
