Arizona resident Jeremy Conrad remembers rooting for the Dallas Cowboys when he was a kid in the 1990s. Then he watched his Cowboys play the Green Bay Packers.
All it took was one game of watching quarterback Brett Favre throw the football and he was hooked.
“From that day on, I was a Packers fan,” Conrad recalled.
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But until this week, he had never been to Lambeau Field or Wisconsin. But on Wednesday, he landed in Milwaukee with his wife and son. The family is staying in Oshkosh and plans to be in Green Bay through Saturday for the NFL draft.
They were out and about near Lambeau Field and the Titletown District on Thursday morning ahead of the first night of the NFL draft. So far, Conrad said the family’s experience in the Badger State has been top notch.
“First thing we noticed, compared to Phoenix, is how green it was,” Conrad said. “And then the second thing we noticed was the hospitality. Everybody’s just really friendly here. … Great vibes.”
The draft will put the national spotlight on Lambeau and Green Bay. Last year, more than 50 million people watched the NFL draft on TV, according to the league. City and team officials spent years working to bring the draft to Green Bay; they put in their first formal bid to host in 2016.
And local leaders hope to capitalize on the attention and the crowds who will gather outside the stadium to watch as all 32 NFL teams select the best eligible college football players in the country to join their rosters.
On Thursday morning, hundreds of football fans from all across the country were roaming the streets around Lambeau Field, hours before the NFL draft campus opened to the public. Todd and Cody Cauffman, a father and son pair of Packer fans, made the trip to Wisconsin from Maryland.
Todd Cauffman said he grew up rooting for the then-Baltimore Colts. But when the Colts moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis, he decided to never root for a team with a single owner again. That’s how he fell in love with the Packers, a passion he shared with his son, Cody.
“My dad was a Packer fan, so naturally, that’s what you get born into. That’s how it starts,” Cody Cauffman said.
Fans traveled from across the county to the event. A few of them spoke about their first impressions of Green Bay and Wisconsin.
Todd Cauffman said the NFL couldn’t have picked a better place to host this year’s draft, calling Lambeau the “mecca of all NFL stadiums.” He said landing the draft is a natural evolution of the development that occurred around the stadium in recent decades. He’s been coming to games in Wisconsin for nearly 30 years, and he said he remembers when an old K-Mart was where the Titletown District stands today.
“That’s something that’s really nice to see,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the events, and I’m sure they’ll go off real well.”
Event is a showcase for NFL’s smallest city
Tens of thousands of fans are expected to attend the three-day event — roughly equivalent to three Packers games if they were held back-to-back-to-back. Officials have said they expect total attendance to be about 240,000. Green Bay, with a population of about 104,000, is by far the smallest city with a major sports team.
For some Wisconsinites, the event was their best chance to attend a major NFL event in person, since Green Bay is likely too small and too cold to host a Super Bowl. Milwaukee and Wausau were among the communities to offer shuttles or charter buses to bring fans to and from the event. Some local school districts even gave students a break from classes.
Some festivities kicked off Wednesday, as the Draft City Music Fest featured hip-hop legends De La Soul for a free concert. Country star Brad Paisley will perform in a free concert on Saturday at the Draft Theater outside Lambeau.
Packers fans aren’t the only ones in Green Bay for the festivities week. Michael Allen, a Philadelphia Eagles fan from California, was in Green Bay with friends Thursday. Their group included Eagles, Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers and Atlanta Falcons. They came to the draft to celebrate his 40th birthday. Allen said he experienced Wisconsin hospitality almost immediately after getting off his plane.
“Getting off the flight, there was a tailgate,” he said. “People were giving out stuff and everyone was very welcoming. I got welcomed three times before I left to get picked up.”
Eric Alleyne, a Steelers fan attending the draft with Allen, said Green Bay was “exactly how I envisioned it” from seeing the community on TV.
“People are very nice, friendly,” he said as he stood in front of a home decorated in green and gold across the street from Lambeau Field. “This is unbelievable how these folks have just dedicated their homes and just built it upon Packer nation.”
Neighborhood residents offer parking, visitor tries cheese curds for the first time
Neighbors near Lambeau often make their front yards available for game-day parking. One of the residents who participated in that tradition Thursday was Anthony Smet, who lives about a mile from the front gate.
Smet was sitting on his front lawn Thursday morning waiting for football fans to use his prime real estate. He’s lived in the home for 30 years and has been parking cars there for about 20 years.
He has space for five cars in his front yard. The price tag for one vehicle for the first day of the draft? $100.
“It’s a little bit of money, which helps pay for little vacations and stuff — it’s a lot of fun,” Smet said.
Prices at other nearby parking lots and front lawns ranged anywhere from $60 to $150. Smet said he and a few neighbors often meet before bigger events to pick the prices.
“If I fill them [parking spaces], it’s good. If I don’t, I’m still OK, cause it’s just the fun of meeting all the people and having fun with the dogs. They’re having a great time,” Smet said while pointing to his two dogs sitting behind him.
Around the corner, Gwen Boucher was ushering cars into a parking lot for $60 a car. She said that money is going toward a local scout troop in the area.
“It’s great for the scouts. They’re going to make so much great money for their accounts and be able to go to camp and all kinds of interesting and fun stuff to do,” Boucher said.
By the afternoon, thousands of fans had filled into the draft festival grounds. Joe Ippolito, a New York Giants fan from New Jersey, was taking it all in next to Ariens Hill.
“Really friendly people, super friendly,” Ippolito said about Wisconsinites. “[I] tried cheese curds yesterday. They were awesome.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated at about 3:20 p.m. Thursday and will be updated further. WPR’s Evan Casey contributed to this report.
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