Behind the scenes of the 2017 NFL Rookie Premiere

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Apr 28, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Texans first round draft pick Deshaun Watson talks during a press conference at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /

Q: Do you keep it at 40 players to make sure the Rookie Premiere is a boutique event? How do you arrive at who is in and out?

Our partners decide who to invite. Historically, we’ve been hemmed in by a few things. The whole event is a few days long and one of those is a field day. There are only so many outlets, so how do you allocate all of the stuff that needs to be done in those hours… to be frank, we had about 45 players one year and it was really hard. It was hard on our folks, but more importantly, it was hard for the partners, who want 15 to 30 minutes or even more with each single player, to get what they needed. It starts to get pretty hard just as a math issue to get around more than 40 players.

But in response to myself, we need to think of other ways to involve players. Maybe they all don’t to do the exact same thing, even though historically that’s what we’ve tried to stick to. Maybe there are different levels. We’ve done it in L.A. most of the 23 years that we’ve been doing this event. Are there regional things we could look at? Are there virtual things we could look at? That orientation that we did this morning and we’ll conclude on Friday, that’s something every single one of the 350 players entering the NFL would benefit from. How do we expand the things like that while really sticking true to the partner element of it, which is getting the unique and fantastic content?

Q: Is it hard to figure out players 38, 39 and 40?

Before the draft, there’s generally a consensus on about half, about 20 of the players, among the partners. This isn’t on our end. We represent all of the players, so we don’t play favorites or weigh in on who should be invited. Then depending on what players get drafted to what teams or where they land, and there are always surprises on who goes higher or lower than expected, the next 10 slots are usually pretty easy. The last 10… it’s a two or three day process of triangulating with the partners of who they want to be invited. Then we go from there.