The NFL draft and Super Bowl media day have become TV events, and the same thing has happened to the NFL scouting combine.
This year’s combine, which begins Tuesday, includes a fan experience and some fans will be allowed inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to watch drills such as the 40-yard dash and bench press.
Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert doesn’t mind any of this, he just hopes that it doesn’t interfere with teams scouting the players.
“I don’t want it to become a marketing opportunity that supersedes the necessary football business that has to happen in that seven-day period,” Colbert told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “There’s so much work that gets done, because to get 330 physicals and visits, if we didn’t do it in that setting, it would be impossible.
“So we can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s football first, entertainment second.”
Colbert, who the Steelers hired in 2000, said he was concerned that TV would create a problem at the combine. But he said that it improved the combine because it made prospects more eager to participate.
Only the NFL can get people to watch football players working out, and now the league is getting people to pay to watch it.
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