The Athletic.

Hello, I'm Mark Chapman.

Welcome to the Business and Sport Pod on The Athletic.

Coming up today with the National Football League draft around the corner,

an event with a huge TV audience will discuss why the event continues to be such a reliable money spinner for the NFL and why it is such an important launch pad for the profiles of college players entering the professional ranks.

This is the business of sport from the athletic.

So as regular listeners of the pod know, every week we seem to crowbar a reference to the NFL in comparison to what is going on in UK sport, particularly when it comes to football this side of the pond.

Well, we don't need to crowbar

it in this week. The whole pod is going to be based on the NFL draft, which kicks off on

April the 29th, runs till May the 1st, across locations in Cleveland. If you don't know,

if you're one of our UK listeners, it is an iconic American sporting ritual where college players previously unpaid are selected by pro teams and paid lots of money to play on Sundays.

That is the draft in a nutshell.

And the reason we can do it like this week is Matt is away.

So we don't cover UK football this week.

It's all about the NFL. We do have an English voice with the athletics at Malion,

although you are in Chicago, aren't you? I am, I am, but still very much British.

But still very much British. And Robert Mays hosted the Athletic Football Show and one of our

NFL writers, also Chicago

Bay. So I've been on your pod, which was a lovely experience. So I hope this is the same

for you on this one. I'm so happy to do it. I'm looking forward to it. In fact,

the Ed and I are about four or five miles away from each other right now. It's very funny.

Well, and we are all Bears fans as well, but we we won't we won't let our despair affect the

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