Cellphone data shows NFL Draft in Green Bay had more unique visitors than Detroit’s draft

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WLUK) — An economic impact study of Green Bay hosting the NFL Draft will be released next month, but new data is showing Green Bay might be able to claim a victory over Detroit in an important attendance measure.

By the NFL’s standards, Detroit has the crown for the most well attended draft with 775,000 people attending the three-day event last year. That compares to about 600,000 people who went to this year’s draft in Green Bay.

“The NFL really tracks turnstile turns if you will,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. “In the Detroit draft, it was a downtown environment, a smaller campus. I think a lot more people bouncing in and out than what you saw over at Lambeau.”

Genrich says that theory is backed up with the city’s use of Placer.ai. The location analytics platform claims to be the world’s most accurate with the trust of big name customers like Google, Meta, Sony, and Adidas.

According to the city, Placer.ai’s use of cellphone data shows Green Bay’s draft footprint had about 234,600 unique visitors over the three-day draft. That compares to about 205,800 unique visitors for Detroit’s draft.

“There’s a few caveats associated with that,” said Genrich. “It doesn’t necessarily track international visitors or kids who don’t have cellphones because it’s really based on cellphone data, but those caveats aside, we had a really strong attendance as we always knew we would but actually a greater attendance than what we saw over in Detroit.”

FOX 11 asked Genrich if the data makes sense considering what the NFL has put out for attendance.

“It does, I think it’s really just a different way of counting folks,” said Genrich.

The NFL has said it uses camera systems at entry gates to count people coming in and out.

“That is the most accurate way you can do it,” said Jon Barker, the NFL Global Head of Major Events, during an April press conference in Green Bay.

FOX 11 asked Barker how the NFL makes sure it doesn’t count someone two or three times.

“It’s tricky to do, but it’s not often that people are leaving the site and then coming back to the site at the same time,” said Barker.

The city’s Placer.ai data shows each unique visitor averaged 1.36 visits to the draft campus, staying an average of 3 hours and 11 minutes per visit.

The data also includes a map showing where people came from for the draft, where people visited before and after the event, as well as draft attendees’ most frequented locations.

“A little bit of bragging rights goes a long way,” said Genrich. “We’re used to beating Detroit in this town and it’s nice to see we had a little bit stronger attendance as well.”

Placer.ai’s website states the data it receives is stripped of important personal information, including identifiers, names, device IDs and contact information.

The economic impact study of Green Bay’s draft is being done by the same group that did the economic study for Detroit’s draft and is expected to be released in July.