This month’s NFL Draft is set to take place in a fully virtual format amid the coronavirus pandemic, the league confirmed in a memo to teams on Monday.
The sport’s most significant offseason event is set to begin on April 23 and will see the next generation of college football talent drafted to the NFL’s 32 franchises.
All public events surrounding the Draft, which was due to be held in Las Vegas and is usually attended by tens of thousands of fans, had already been cancelled in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.
Teams typically assemble key recruitment and coaching personnel in a ‘war room’ at the franchise facility, where decisions about picks and trades are made collectively and dialled in to Draft HQ.
However, all such facilities have been closed since March 26, and individuals have now been told to stay at home and use phone and internet to communicate with one another during the Draft.
The memo, from commissioner Roger Goodell, said: “We are operating in an environment unlike anything we have experienced before, one that requires flexibility, patience, and cooperation.
“As we work through those challenges together, we should not lose sight of the magnitude of this global health crisis, of the extraordinary work of first responders, healthcare workers, and so many others, of the growing number of Americans in need of assistance, and of those who have lost family or friends to this virus.”
The NFL has so far been relatively undisrupted by the outbreak, with last season having finished in early February and the new one still scheduled to get underway as planned in September.
