Penn Relays face competition in town next week: the NFL draft
Thousands of fans will be at Franklin Field. More are likely to be at the Art Museum. Traffic is a concern.
Other than the occasional Phillies weekend series, the Penn Relays have enjoyed virtually all of the local sports attention for their annual three days of competition that end on the final Saturday of April, but that won't be the case when the 123rd carnival begins next Thursday.
That's because the NFL draft is in town. The draft, usually held on the same three days as the Penn Relays, will take place in the Art Museum area with related activities up and down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and is expected to draw an estimated 200,000 fans.
>> Click here for more coverage of the 2017 NFL draft in Philadelphia
The carnival is no slouch in attracting spectators; more than 103,000 people turned out at Franklin Field for the track and field carnival last year. With the reigning NCAA champion Oregon women competing, as well as perennial powers Villanova, Penn State and Stanford, the draw for track aficionados will be equally as strong, even if the casual fans' attention might be elsewhere.
Dave Johnson, the director of the Penn Relays, said he understands that professional sports, particularly the NFL, receive year-round attention from the media.
"It gets tougher all the time," Johnson, in his 22nd year as relays director, said Wednesday. "These things will happen. You just make the best of the situation and try to create your own reality for the event, try to do something to change the situation from becoming a problem."
Johnson said if he has one concern, it's traffic. The closing of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for draft activities means a lot of vehicles will spill onto the Schuylkill Expressway, which could delay people from the western suburbs trying to get to Franklin Field.
"I know that in rainy weather, people come down from City Line Avenue to avoid the expressway at rush hour," Johnson said. "They might come down Belmont Avenue. Or maybe they'll come down Route 3 or Lancaster Avenue. I don't know what will happen with traffic. I'm hoping there's no bad weather because rain always slows traffic on the expressway."
That's where public transportation takes over. Larry Needle, executive director of PHL Sports, a division of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, said free parking will be offered at the South Philadelphia sports complex starting next Thursday afternoon so fans can take the Broad Street Line to Center City and transfer to the Market-Frankford Line to West Philadelphia.
Patrons can travel by train to 30th Street Station or take the Schuylkill River Trail, which links the Art Museum to the South Street Bridge, where fans cross to Franklin Field, if they want to attend both events.
>> Click here for our guide to getting around Philadelphia during the draft
"The trail connects the events in a very real way," Needle said. "We're certainly telling Penn Relays fans to come check out the draft, and we're telling draft fans to go check out the relays. What an awesome sports weekend that is, and it's literally a 15-minute walk to get to and from."
Quite a few Penn Relays competitors also played NFL football going back to Bob Hayes (Florida A&M) and including Mike Carter (SMU), Raghib "Rocket" Ismael (Notre Dame), and Jamaal Charles (Texas). Maybe fans will do the double.
"The draft on Thursday doesn't start until 8 p.m., so there's a chance to come for the Penn Relays Thursday morning and afternoon and then go the Parkway," Johnson said. "Even Friday, we start at 9 in the morning and there's lots of good stuff going on."
Hotel accommodations are not a problem. Johnson said most teams at the Penn Relays usually reserve for the next year when they're checking out. He said his office also reserves blocks for other teams so they don't get shut out.
Needle said hotel rooms remain available for next week, whether in the city or the region as a whole.
"We've got a good-sized inventory to work with," he said, noting that there are 11,000 rooms in Center City alone. "It's a fantastic weekend for our entire hospitality community, so certainly our hotels and our restaurants and our attractions [are] going to be running at almost full capacity next week."
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