On April 24-26, the NFL held its annual draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin. With the 1st overall pick, the Tennessee Titans selected former Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward. A total of 257 NFL prospects were drafted across the three-day and seven-round event.
The draft is the unofficial start of the next season for the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, the four top professional sports leagues in the U.S. based on revenue. However, each league’s draft rules and the results of its previous season influence this event, which is monumental for draft prospects and the franchises of these leagues.
NFL Draft, Rules, and Process
At the proposition of Philadelphia Eagles co-owner Bert Bell, league owners voted unanimously in 1935 to have an annual draft. The first NFL Draft occurred in 1936 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia. Over time, the NFL Draft has evolved.
Currently, it is a three-day and seven-round traveling spectacle. Beginning in 2015, the NFL decided to move the draft from Radio City Music Hall in New York, which had been the home of the draft for many years, to a different NFL city every year, starting with Chicago.
As for the draft, all 32 NFL teams receive one pick per round. Where each team drafts is determined by what happened in the previous season. The first 20 draft slots are reserved for the 20 teams that did not make the playoffs. The team with the worst record gets the1st overall pick, and the team with the best record of the 20 non-playoff teams gets the 20th overall pick.
The 12 remaining draft slots are filled in as the playoffs happen. Still, the first 10 remaining slots are determined by the regular season records of the teams eliminated in each round of the playoffs. The 2 remaining spots are reserved for the teams playing in the Super Bowl, with the 32nd and final slot going to the Super Bowl Champion.
Each team receives seven picks, but not every team drafts seven players. Some teams draft fewer than seven players. Others draft more than seven players. The number of picks each team has in a draft is influenced by in-season and/or draft-day trades and compensatory picks.
The league can give compensatory picks to teams that have lost free agents to other teams under the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement. To determine how many compensatory picks each team gets, the NFL considers a player’s salary, playing time, and postseason honors, and totals the value of the free agents acquired or lost by each team. The league can give a maximum of four compensatory picks to each team, and the picks can only be for the end of the third round through the seventh round.
The 2026 Draft will be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from April 23-25.
NBA Draft, Rules, and Process
Meanwhile, the NBA uses a lottery system to determine the order of its draft. Unlike the NFL, which gives the 1st overall pick to the team with the worst overall record the previous season, the NBA leaves the 1st pick up for grabs to the 14 NBA franchises that did not make the playoffs.
However, before the adoption of the lottery system in 1984, the NBA used what the NFL uses in a game to determine which team receives the kickoff, a coin toss, to determine who got the 1st overall pick between the worst team in the Western and Eastern Conference. Over time, the NBA Draft Lottery has evolved.
2019 marked a new era for the NBA Draft Lottery when, per changes approved by the league’s Board of Governors in 2017 to the lottery system, the three teams with the worst overall records in the previous season now have the same odds, 14%, of getting the 1st overall pick. The current NBA Draft Lottery format also ensures that the team with the worst overall record drafts no less than in the top five.
As for the process of the NBA Draft Lottery, the first 4 picks of the NBA draft are determined by 16 separate drawings. Fourteen ping-pong balls are placed in a lottery machine, and 1,000 out of the possible 1,001 combinations are randomly assigned to the 14 teams. There are 4 drawings for each pick.
The 14 ping-pong balls are mixed in the lottery machine for 20 seconds for the first drawing. The mixing time is then decreased to 10 seconds for the other three drawings. The team that the combination corresponds to will get that pick. The result will be thrown out if the combination drawn is of a team that has already been drawn, or the unassigned combination is drawn, and another four-ball combination will be drawn.
The results of the NBA Draft Lottery are then televised on ESPN and announced by NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum in front of a representative for each participating team. The envelope with the team’s logo that has won the 1st overall pick is opened last.
The 10 remaining draft slots are filled by the 10 teams that did not get one of the first 4 picks based on their regular season records, with the worst team of the remaining lottery teams getting the 5th pick and the best team getting the 14th pick. The remaining draft slots of the first round, 15-30, and the second and final round are determined by the reverse order of regular-season record.
The 2025 NBA Draft will be held on June 25th.
NHL Draft, Rules, and Process
In addition to sharing ten arenas, the NBA and the NHL use the same lottery system to determine the team that gets the 1st pick in their respective drafts. Like the NBA Draft Lottery, the NHL Draft Lottery consists of the teams that did not make the playoffs,1,000 randomly assigned combinations, 14 ping-pong balls, and a lottery machine. However, like the differences in how each sport is played, there are differences between the NBA and NHL Draft Lotteries.
One difference is the number of lottery teams. The NHL Draft Lottery consists of 16 teams, 2 more than the NBA Draft Lottery. The 16 teams are placed in reverse order of their overall season total points, with the team with the fewest points being placed #1. Unlike the NBA Draft Lottery, where the top 3 worst teams have the same odds of getting the 1st pick in the draft, the NHL team placed #1 has the best odds, 18.5%, of getting the 1st pick.
As for the NHL Draft Lottery, the lottery is for the 1st and 2nd picks of the first round and consists of 4 drawings per pick. Each mixing of the balls is 30 seconds. Sixteen teams have a chance to be drawn, but only 12 teams have a shot at the first two picks of the draft.
Per a 2021 change to the Draft Lottery format, a team can only move up 10 slots from their original placement in the lottery standings if it wins one of the drawings. That means the top 11 lottery teams have a chance at the 1st and 2nd pick, and the 12th lottery team only has a chance at the 2nd pick.
If a team outside the top 11 wins the drawing for the 1st pick, the #1 seeded team gets the pick, and the team that won the drawing moves up 10 slots from their original seeding. The same rules apply for the drawing of the 2nd pick, with the next lowest seed getting the pick if a team outside the top 12 wins the drawing. The remaining draft slots are filled in based on the reverse order of the regular-season points totals of the remaining lottery teams.
NHL fans watched this process live as the NHL Draft Lottery was televised for the first time on May 5th. The 10th-seed New York Islanders won the 1st overall pick. The 1-seed San Jose Sharks got the 2nd pick because the 14th-seed Utah Hockey Club won the drawing for the 2nd pick, and moved up ten spots to the 4th pick.
If the New York Islanders were to win the lottery next year, they would be barred from winning it for five years, per a 2021 lottery rule that prevents a team from winning the lottery more than two times in five years.
The remaining 16 picks of the 1st round are based on the regular-season points totals of the teams in the playoffs and the playoff results. For rounds 2-7, the NHL, similar to how the NFL determines the order of its draft, determines the picks based on the reverse order of the regular season standings and the playoff results.
The 2025 NHL Draft will be held from June 27-28.
MLB Draft, Rules, and Process
The MLB used to share only cities with the NBA and NHL, but per the 2022 collective bargaining agreement, starting in 2023, it began sharing a lottery system, too. Before 2023, the MLB Draft order was based on the reverse order of the regular season standings, with the team with the lowest winning percentage getting the 1st overall pick. Now, the 1st pick, along with picks 2-6, are determined by the MLB Draft Lottery.
The lottery participants are the 18 teams that did not make the playoffs. The three teams with the lowest winning percentages have the same odds of getting the 1st overall pick. However, per the draft lottery rules, which prohibit “payee clubs,” teams that receive revenue sharing money, from getting a lottery pick three years in a row, and “payor clubs,” teams that give revenue sharing dollars, from getting a lottery pick two years in a row, the Athletics, a “payee club,” and the Chicago White Sox, a “payor club,” were not eligible for this years MLB Draft Lottery.
After many 15-second mixings of the 14 ping-pong balls, the 6 combinations corresponding to the 6 teams that got a lottery pick have been drawn, and the picks 7-18 have been filled based on the reverse order of the regular-season standings of the remaining teams, a designated person announces the results of the MLB Draft Lottery in front of representatives for the 18 lottery teams.
The 12 remaining draft slots in the 1st round are determined by the postseason results and the revenue-sharing status of the postseason teams, with “payee clubs” drafting before “payor clubs.” That is the order the 12 postseason teams will draft for the entire MLB Draft, which consists of 20 rounds. After the first round, the lottery teams will draft in reverse order of winning percentage for the remainder of the draft.
The 2025 MLB Draft will be held from July 13-15.