The NFL Draft: Grappling with Uncertainty
Ten years ago I couldn’t have imagined the NFL draft being held in Las Vegas. Those were the days the league refused to acknowledge that people actually bet on games. During Super Bowl week the league issued cease and desist letters to casinos advertising Super Bowl parties, citing trademark infringement violations. Ever since the first week in February means “The Big Game” has arrived.
But after Mark Davis’s Raiders picked the public’s pockets for three-quarters of a billion dollars to build Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders arrived, followed by the Pro Bowl, and now the draft, on a floating stage on the lake in front of the Bellagio.
My oft-reprinted mises.org piece from 2012 “The NFL Draft and the Division of Labor '' focused on the little-known draft expert Joel Bushsbuam. And while new draft expert Todd McShay says of Mel Kiper Jr., “He’s the Godfather. He’s the one who started this whole industry.” McShay is wrong. One of the few mourners at Bushsbuam’s funeral was Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. "He knew the players better than any scout for any team," Belichick said. "Studying film is crucial, and that's why he was so good. He did it 24 hours a day." Belichick tried to hire Bushsbuam often. He wrote his first draft report at age 20. The next year he was hired by the Football News.
The draft seems dreadfully dull to watch for even the most ardent fans. But, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) figures the town will clean up hosting three nights of player picking on the water. It’s being compared to New Year's Eve with attendance of one million people (with some double-counting).
The Nevada Resort Association’s Virginia Valentine says the draft will be a “historic weekend,” and “We are confident Las Vegas’ tourism industry will set a new standard in hosting NFL events while breaking attendance records.” The LVCVA is spending $3 million on the event. For that, average draft room rates are $244.77 a night, lower, however, than the weekend rates when Korean K-pop boy band BTS was in town.
“Tao Group Hospitality co-CEO Jason Strauss is accustomed to hosting massive crowds on select Vegas weekends. But from turntables to VIP tables, the NFL has super-sized the challenges,” writes Review-Journal entertainment writer John Katsilometes. “Now we might be running out of fly-top tables, and I am having serious conversations about these tables,” says Strauss, who oversees the Strip’s largest nightlife and daylife company. “In 16 years in this business, I have never had that concern.”
Comparing the draft to a major title fight, “We are seeing an outpouring of major, big-group business in our restaurants, and coming in to see our DJs and performers on draft weekend,” Strauss says. “So we have draft picks coming in with their agents, their groups, celebrating where they have been picked. You have corporate sponsors like Nike, Under Armor, Verizon — every NFL sponsor will be in Las Vegas.”
“We’ve been planning for this weekend for a long time, obviously for the 2020 draft, and we have known for a long time this is going to be one of the biggest weekends of the year,” says Dustin Drai, the son of Drai’s founder and nightlife pioneer Victor Drai. “We have a huge lineup. We’re really going heavy with our A-list talent on that weekend, and it is because of the draft.” NFL star Alvin Kamara and others in his party were arrested for assault in the elevator at Drai’s. While the incident happened before the Pro Bowl, Kamara was not arrested until after the game.
Yes, Las Vegas has nightclubs and everything else players with bad habits can indulge in. The Las Vegas Raiders had two first round picks in the 2020 draft. With the 12th overall pick, the Raiders selected Alabama wide receiver Henry Ruggs III. Seven picks later the Raiders took cornerback Damon Arnette.
Mr. Ruggs could face 50 years in prison after ramming into a stationary car in residential Las Vegas at 156 miles per hour. As a rookie, Ruggs had agreed to a 4-year, $16.67 million deal. He was cut from the Raiders a day after the crash. He was drafted ahead of successful receivers such as Cee Dee Lamb and Tee Higgins.
Arnette played little and was released after posting a video brandishing firearms and making death threats. Miami signed him to their practice squad until the season ended and then Kansas City signed and quickly released him after his arrest on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, and two counts of possession of controlled substances in Las Vegas. Star cornerback Trevon Diggs was drafted 30 plus picks after Arnette.
The Raiders’ 2021 5th round pick, Nate Hobbs, was arrested for DUI after being found asleep in his car just hours after the Raiders’ 23-20 win over the Indianapolis Colts at a Las Vegas nightclub.
“Every draft selection carries risk,” Tho Bishop wrote with understatement. “Some players have red flags for off the field behavior, and each team has their own judgment on how many red flags they are willing to overlook in selecting a player.”
Murray Rothbard could have been writing about NFL general managers in Economic Controversies, “the entrepreneur is not passive but extremely active. He takes risks, and attempts to forecast the future; he grapples with uncertainty.”
Subjective valuation plays a big part in the draft. While there is no Payton Manning vs. Ryan Leaf quarterback controversy at the top of this year’s draft, it’s the other side of the ball offering intrigue. Will the top pick be edge rusher Adrian Hutchinson or Trevon Walker, also slated for the position? Why would one team draft one, while another draft the other, or someone else. There are no absolutes.
I quoted F.A. “Baldy” Harper a decade ago concerning the pro potential of college players.
“The first step in understanding the Austrian concept is to realize that value is entirely subjective, rather than something objective. Value, therefore, is something that each individual person weighs on a purely private, not a public, set of scales.”
Harper continued;
“Hence, any two persons will not and need not agree on the value of the same item at the same instant of time. If they should agree, it is a coincidence of no significance whatever so far as discovering value objectively is concerned. For any item at any given instant of time, each person sets his own value in a way that is a mystery to others. He takes into account a vast range of considerations, many of which are peculiar to him alone and which may be so deeply subjective that he cannot even describe them to another person.”
While NFL general managers grapple with uncertainty this week, the LVCVA is counting on the draft being a sure thing for the local economy. And, the police department should be on high alert.
