A Predictable Victory: How Data-Intelligence Helped Bring the NFL Draft to Green Bay
A Win Years in the Making
After years of bidding, the Green Bay Packers and Discover Green Bay, alongside PMI Entertainment Group, secured one of the most coveted events in sports—the 2025 NFL Draft. While passion and persistence fueled the bid, the true game-changer was the use of predictive visitor intelligence to demonstrate impact and prepare the community for success.
Predictive visitor intelligence helped Green Bay secure and successfully host the 2025 NFL Draft.
The Long Game Pays Off
The bid to host had been years in the making. Green Bay’s leadership team, from Discover Green Bay to the Packers organization and PMI Entertainment Group, faced setbacks, delays, and pandemic disruptions. But the turning point came in 2022, when the Packers’ London game revealed something powerful: Packer fans don’t just show up, they travel en masse.
That visible proof of passion, a sea of green and gold, combined with the approaching retirement of Packers CEO Mark Murphy, gave the NFL reason to take a serious look at Green Bay. By 2025, the bid was theirs.
The passion of Packers fans and the leadership of Mark Murphy helped turn years of effort into Green Bay’s winning NFL Draft bid.
Seeing the Draft Before It Happened: From Proof to Playbook
Green Bay faced a challenge. Compared to major-market hosts like Las Vegas or Philadelphia, it needed to prove that a smaller Midwestern city could not only host the Draft, but thrive with it.
Using predictive modeling from comparable markets like Cleveland and Kansas City, Discover Green Bay and its partners built a data-driven case that went beyond “fan enthusiasm.” Zartico’s visitor intelligence illuminated:
- Travel Behavior: How far fans would travel, how long they would stay, and what businesses they would visit.
- Cross-Visitation: Patterns showing where attendees went outside the Draft footprint and which businesses see surges in traffic—restaurants, casinos, and local attractions.
- Business Impact: Revenue lifts across sectors, allowing the committee to secure sponsorship and buy-in from local partners with confidence.
More than measurement, it was proof in advance—evidence powerful enough to rally businesses, sponsors, and community leaders around a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Armed with this knowledge, Green Bay planned logistics, and they activated local businesses. By showing how similar events boosted revenue in peer cities, they secured community and sponsor buy-in. A 12-page playbook of insights was shared with business owners, giving them a roadmap for what to expect and how to prepare.
Fans fueled more than football—local businesses thrived as the Draft turned Green Bay into a citywide celebration.
Record-Breaking Results
After the NFL Draft, Discover Green Bay turned to Zartico again to analyze the event impacts, and the outcome shattered every pre-intelligence projection:
- Attendees: Over 600,000 attendees, well over the 250,000 initially estimated.
- Economic Impact (Brown County): $72M, more than triple the $20M projection.
- Economic Impact (State of Wisconsin): $104M, exceeding the $94M estimate.
“The economic impact we achieved wasn’t just a result of passion—it was because we could predict and prepare,” said Nick Meisner, VP of Digital Marketing and Communications, Discover Green Bay. “Visitor intelligence gave us the evidence we needed to engage partners in advance, and the post-event analysis confirmed how and why those $104M in results materialized.”
More than numbers, the data illuminated the story of why the event succeeded — showing visitor journeys, spending patterns, and business impact in real time. That insight not only justified the community’s investment, it provided a blueprint for how Green Bay can continue hosting large-scale events with confidence.
The Draft exceeded every projection—600,000 fans, $104M in statewide impact, and proof that visitor intelligence can turn preparation into record-breaking results.
A Playbook for the Future
The Green Bay NFL Draft is now being cited as a model for how smaller markets can compete — and win — on the national stage. It proves that with fan passion, strategic persistence, and the right intelligence, even the smallest NFL city can deliver a record-setting event.
| ✨ Key takeaway: Visitor intelligence isn’t about only measuring impact. Used strategically, it increases impact—turning insights into action, preparation into performance, and ambition into measurable success. |
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