The NFL has hired a local trucking company to hire gear for the upcoming NFL Draft event in Wisconsin.
The NFL Draft is scheduled for April 24th through 26th at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Veriha Trucking in Marinette has been employed to help the organization haul its sound and video gear to the event.
According to Spectrum News 1, the NFL began connecting with businesses near the venue last year in an attempt to support the local economy. Veriha has experience hauling gear for concerts and other specialty events.
“We will have 29 trucks that come in directly with this vendor,” said Megan Cheney, vice president of the company’s entertainment division. “About 10 of them are coming out of Lititz, Pennsylvania, which is about 70 miles west of Philadelphia. The remaining are all coming out of Nashville, Tennessee.”
“This is a very normal event for us. We support tours. Different artists and bands that go out on tour, we’ll bring all of their gear from show to show,” Cheney said. “We also do a lot of speciality events that are one day, two days, three days, where we bring all the gear into the facilities and then after the event is done, we’ll be coming back in when they rip everything down, loading it back up and returning it to the customers.”
The NFL Draft is expected to have a $94 million economic impact across the entire state of Wisconsin.
“We know that some of these large events can be kind of disruptive. We want to make sure those that are disrupted by them are also benefiting from them,” said Myisha Boyce, the NFL source lead for Super Bowl and Draft programs. “It’s really, really important to the league to see local businesses thrive at a time when we are putting in a huge economic infusion.”
“Our intention is put the dollars locally first,” Boyce said. “If those contracts are not able to be fulfilled locally, that’s when we start to look to national partners. The NFL really works on this local first idea.”
“It’s definitely a good revenue driver for us, but it’s also really good from a press perspective,” Cheney said. “Most people don’t even realize that Veriha specializes in and does this type of work.”
