Detroit businesses eager to benefit from NFL Draft

Local businesses are clamoring to work with the NFL Draft and benefit from the burst of economic activity that comes with it.

Why it matters: Restaurants, clothing shops and other businesses all over the city are getting involved to make the April 25-27 draft an authentic Detroit experience.

• A lot of money is on the table. Organizers expect visitors to spend hundreds of millions ; the NFL's budget for the event is $25 million.

State of play: Some businesses have contracts for catering, janitorial and other services.

• Restaurants and merchants will set up in the event's downtown footprint at food trucks and pop-ups inside empty downtown storefronts.

What they're saying: "We're just excited to show what we've been preparing for, what I've been preparing for my whole career," Nina Love, whose Detroit-based company, The Love Experience , will be catering for the draft at Hart Plaza, told the Detroit News .

The big picture: Sports tourism is an important piece of the local economy . City leaders are using the draft to fine-tune their model for including local businesses in potential future events like an NBA All-Star Game or NCAA Final Four.

Flashback: The mayor's office, the Detroit Sports Commission and local business groups including the Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance began developing a business referral program for the draft last fall.

• "In those meetings, I talked about ensuring that Black entrepreneurs not only had a shot, but they didn't just want the crumbs. We wanted real contracts," Kaiwan Bowman, the alliance's chief operating officer, told the News.

Yes, but: Some businesses have felt left out.

• The Southwest Detroit Business Association was not approached with opportunities to get involved, CEO Laura Chavez-Wazeerud-Din told the Free Press .
• Alexis Wiley, co-chair of the draft's local organizing committee, refuted any characterization that Southwest is being overlooked — four businesses there have draft contracts and about a dozen others will be featured on the event's OnePass app .

What's next: The NFL Draft's guide to Detroit — featuring museums, restaurants and other attractions — will be unveiled in the coming weeks on OnePass.

• Visitors to featured businesses will be entered in a raffle to win Super Bowl tickets, Wiley tells Axios.

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