A draft is a process used in some countries and sports to allocate certain players to teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players. When a team selects a player, the team receives exclusive rights to sign that player to a contract, and no other team in the league may sign the player. The process is similar to round-robin item allocation.
The National Football League draft, also called the NFL draft or (officially) the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative to its record in the previous year, which means that the last place team is positioned first and the Super Bowl champion is last. From this position, the team can either select a player or trade its position to another team for other draft positions, a player or players, or any combination thereof. The round is complete when each team has either selected a player or traded its position in the draft. The first draft was held in 1936, and has been held every year since.
The NHL Entry Draft is an annual meeting in which every franchise of the National Hockey League (NHL) systematically select the rights to available ice hockey players who meet draft eligibility requirements. The NHL Entry Draft is held once every year, generally within two to three months after the conclusion of the previous regular season. During the draft, teams take turns selecting amateur players from junior or collegiate leagues and professional players from European leagues.
The Major League Baseball draft is the primary mechanism of Major League Baseball (MLB) for assigning amateur baseball players from high schools, colleges, and other amateur baseball clubs to its teams. The draft order is determined based on a lottery where the teams who did not make the postseason in the past year participate in a state-lottery style process to determine the first six picks, starting in 2023. The team possessing the worst record receives the best odds of receiving the first pick. Until 2022, it was determined by the previous season's standings, with the worst team selecting first.
Michael Schad is a Canadian former professional football player who was an offensive lineman in the National Football League (NFL). After his football career, he became a mortgage banker with CMG Financial located in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey.
The 1979 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 3–4, 1979, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, New York. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season.
The 1976 NFL draft was an annual player selection meeting held April 8–9, 1976, at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, New York.
The CFL draft is an annual sports draft in which the teams of the Canadian Football League (CFL) select eligible Canadian/non-import players, typically from the ranks of U Sports football or NCAA college football. Member clubs make selections based on the reverse order of the previous year's standings, with the team with the worst record being awarded the first selection, the Grey Cup runner-up getting the second-to-last selection and the Grey Cup champion selecting last. The draft is held once every year, approximately six weeks prior to the start of the upcoming season.
The 2002 CFL Draft took place on Thursday, April 25, 2002. From a list of 442 eligible CIS football players from Canadian universities and Canadian players in the NCAA and NAIA, 54 players were chosen, including 26 players from Canadian Interuniversity Sport institutions.
The 1996 CFL Draft took place on May 31, 1996. 61 Canadian football players were chosen from eligible Canadian universities as well as Canadian players playing in the NCAA. This would be the last time that a CFL draft would have seven rounds, switching to six rounds in 1997, until the league reverted to seven in 2013. The Edmonton Eskimos obtained the first overall pick, along with Nick Mazzoli, from the Ottawa Rough Riders in exchange for Dan Murphy and Jay Chistenson. In the fifth round, the Montreal Alouettes drafted defensive end James Eggink who had died from cancer in December 1995. The Edmonton Eskimos obtained the first overall pick, along with Nick Mazzoli, from the Ottawa Rough Riders in exchange for Dan Murphy and Jay Chistenson.
The 2013 CFL Draft took place on Monday, May 6, 2013, at 12:00 PM ET on TSN. 60 players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian Universities across the country, as well as Canadian players playing in the NCAA. The Montreal Alouettes had the most selections with nine, followed by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats with eight. Each of the West Division teams had seven picks while Winnipeg had six. The defending Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts had five picks and Ottawa chose four players from NCAA schools that would play another year. A total of 16 trades were made involving draft picks from this year, including two made on draft day itself, with 12 being made by the Edmonton Eskimos. Of the 60 draft selections, 44 players were drafted from Canadian Interuniversity Sport institutions, which is the highest number of CIS players taken since the 1987 CFL Draft when 50 of 72 were taken. It is also the highest percentage (73.3%) of CIS players taken since 2009.
The 2015 CFL Draft took place on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, at 8:00 PM ET on TSN2 and RDS2. 62 players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian Universities across the country, as well as Canadian players playing in the NCAA.
The 2019 CFL Draft took place on May 2, 2019 at 8:00 pm ET and was broadcast on TSN and RDS. 73 players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian universities, as well as Canadian players playing in the United States on NCAA or NAIA teams.
The 2020 CFL Draft took place on April 30, 2020 at 8:00 pm ET and was broadcast on TSN and RDS. 73 players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian Universities across the country, as well as Canadian players playing in the NCAA. This was the second year in a row that featured territorial picks after they were re-introduced in the 2019 CFL Draft.
The 2021 CFL National Draft was a selection of National players by Canadian Football League teams that took place at May 4, 2021 at 7:00 pm ET and was broadcast on TSN and RDS. 54 players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian universities across the country, as well as Canadian players playing in the NCAA. Unlike previous drafts, where the selection order was determined by the previous year's standings, this year's draft order was determined by a random draw.
The 2021 CFL Global Draft took place on April 15, 2021 and was the first CFL Draft that pooled all of the global players together after previously having separate drafts for Mexican players and European players in 2019. 36 players were chosen from among eligible players following a virtual CFL Combine. The order of the draft was determined by random lottery, similar to the system used for the 2021 CFL Draft. As a snake draft, each odd round was in the opposite order of each even round.
The 2023 CFL National Draft was a selection of National players by Canadian Football League teams that took place on May 2, 2023, at 8:00 pm ET. 72 players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian Universities across the country, as well as Canadian players playing in the NCAA and NAIA.