What Time Did the 2024 NFL Draft Start?

What Time Did the 2024 NFL Draft Start?

2024 NFL Draft - Rounds 2-3//Getty

The National Football League (NFL) draft, officially recognized as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is a yearly event that serves as the most regular source of player recruitment in the NFL. Prior to the inaugural National Football League draft in 1936, players were free to sign with any club. This tended to make the top teams even stronger and created much disparity in the NFL. On May 19th, 1935, the league owners adopted a plan for a college player draft. Proposed by Bert Bell, the Eagles owner and future NFL commissioner, the plan called for teams to select players in inverse order of their finish of the previous season. This meant that the last-placed team would be positioned first and the Super Bowl champion would be last. Therefore, this position enabled teams to either select a player or trade its position to another team for other draft positions; a player or a bunch of players or any combination thereof. Consequently, a complete round would be determined once each team has either selected a player or traded its position in the draft. 

Time of the NFL Draft Over the Years

The draft has seen a lot of evolution through the years. After the early years of the 1930s and 1940s, the draft was eventually codified into the NFL Constitution. Then the scouting era began in the late 1940s to 1960 as a result of competition from the All-America Football Conference. The period witnessed the NFL and the American Football League rival each other with separate drafts, until 1966. And then 1967 through to 1969 saw joint drafts held for the two separate leagues. The end of the decade brought about the merger of the NFL and AFL, birthing a new rivalry, as the Super Bowl took center stage. The NFL, drafting as one unified league, eventually reduced the number of rounds to 12, and fierce competition sprouted as a result of emerging technology making it a high-stakes affair. Broadcast and the digital era entered the fold in the 1980s; with it, the draft became an entertaining spectacle. Its demand led to a move from weekdays to the weekends and its rating improved dramatically. In 2003, the NFL Network was launched and it began to produce exclusive draft coverage. This led network broadcasters such as ESPN, FOX and ABC to enter into partnerships with the NFL Network, with the paid fees offering them non-exclusive rights to the draft coverage.

Joe Haden from the Florida Gators holds up a Cleveland Browns//Getty

In 2010, the NFL moved to a three-day draft, with the first day encompassing the first round beginning at 8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Thursday. The second day encompassed the second and third rounds beginning at 7:00 pm EDT, Friday. The third day concluded the process with the final four rounds beginning at 11:00 am EDT, Saturday.

After the draft expanded to a three-day format in 2010, the next major change came with a change of city in 2015. The growth of the draft coverage audience each year saw a move from a smoky hotel conference room to the stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Below is the draft location from 2015 to 2026.