CEO Brad Toll helped pull the strings that landed Green Bay the 2025 NFL draft.
Styling by Shalene Enz / Photographs by Shane Van Boxtel, Image Studios
Brad Toll and his team at Discover Green Bay work a kind of magic unseen by many local residents — that is, until nearly 4,000 cosplayers descend on downtown Green Bay for Kitsune Kon, an anime and gaming convention held annually in July at the KI Convention Center.
Then the magic is pretty unavoidable, and might even be carrying a foam sword down the street.
“It’s always funny to go out to dinner during the convention and overhear conversations like, ‘Have you seen the people downtown? Where the heck did they come from?’” Toll says. “I don’t know, they think it’s magic. A lot of people and even businesses don’t know what we do.”
But what Toll’s organization lacks in visibility, it makes up for in impact. As Brown County’s destination marketing organization (DMO), Discover Green Bay works quietly behind the scenes booking conventions like Kitsune Kon and leading marketing efforts that in 2023 drew more than 6.3 million visitors to the region who spent nearly $800 million at local businesses.
But this year is shaping up to be one of the most impactful yet, says Toll, who was involved in securing the 2025 NFL draft taking place in Green Bay April 24-26, bringing an estimated 300,000 visitors with it.
“There’s a lot of talk about the spend that will happen during the NFL draft, and it is the biggest, best thing that we’ve ever had come in, so that part is awesome,” Toll says, “but 50 to 70 million people all over the world will watch this on TV. Our community’s exposure to that many people who will get a little taste of the quality of life in this area — that’s huge.”
‘It all starts with a visit’
The Wisconsin tourism industry has been booming, with back-to-back record-breaking years. Tourism’s total economic impact was $25 billion in 2023, a 5.4% increase over 2022.
Mirroring the trend at the local level, Brown County saw its highest-ever economic impact of $1.335 billion in 2023, up 4.7% from the previous year. Statewide, Brown County ranks fifth in overall visitor spending behind Milwaukee, Dane, Sauk and Waukesha counties.
Many factors have contributed to that growth, Toll says. Local investments, an attractive mix of business and recreational opportunities as well as a growing lodging industry have all helped to increase tourism in the region. One of the largest projects impacting the growing tourism economy in Green Bay has been the development of the Resch Expo. It’s allowed Discover Green Bay to pursue many events that Green Bay would otherwise have not been able to host, including the NFL draft.
While attracting visitors remains the ultimate goal, Toll has seen the role of DMOs change from simply tourism promoters to economic development partners, playing a bigger part in things like business attraction and workforce development than ever before.
“Promoting the area as a good place to live and work is not something that we’ve done in the past,” Toll says. “But we’ve been partnering with New North, Inc. and the Greater Green Bay Chamber to do just that. Visitors want to know what makes our economy tick and what the quality of life is like. We can share some of that information on behalf of New North and the chamber and encourage people to relocate here too.”
To highlight the reciprocal relationship between tourism, community vitality and the local economy, Toll references the now-famous speech referred to by tourism industry professionals as the “if you build a place” speech. It was given by Maura Gast, executive director of Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau in Texas, during her 2009 closing remarks at Destinations International’s annual convention.
“If you build a place that people want to visit, you build a place that people want to live,” Gast said. “If you build a place where people want to live, you build a place where people want to work. If you build a place where people want to work, you build a place where business has to be. If you build a place where business has to be, we’ll be back to building a place where people have to visit. It all starts with a visit.”
That idea that it all starts with a visit is exactly the goal behind all Discover Green Bay does, Toll says. Discover Green Bay works to attract visitors by branding Brown County as a destination with high livability and a strong cultural identity.
“We look at every visitor that comes to Green Bay — and we have 6.3 million of them every year — as a potential resident or employee of one of our businesses,” he says. “We know that 90% of people that relocate have first been a visitor to that community, so we need to make that visitor experience everything it can be.”
“We know that 90% of people who relocate have been a visitor to that community, so we need to make that visitor experience everything it can be.”
– Brad Toll, president & CEO, Discover Green Bay
A new era of tourism
As the role of DMOs continues to evolve, so does Discover Green Bay. Founded as the Green Bay Area Visitor and Convention Bureau Inc. in 1969, Discover Green Bay unveiled its new brand in 2021.
DMOs nationwide are increasingly rebranding themselves to better reflect their broader contributions to tourism and economic development, as well as to make their purpose more clear to visitors and locals alike.
“We wanted to do something that really embodied our destination a little more,” Toll says. “In a lot of cases, people are coming [to Green Bay] because they’ve heard about the Packers. They want to see the stadium. But when they get here, they start discovering there’s a lot more to Green Bay than just the stadium and the Packers. They go out and they discover other things and find that it’s really a great destination on its own.”
The organization’s updated logo, which incorporates what has been affectionately dubbed the “waveball,” encompasses Green Bay’s iconic football history and its lesser known location on the water.
“When we were looking at branding the entire community, some of the surveying that was done with executives around the country found that a lot of people didn’t realize we were on water,” Toll says. “We’re a very active port community in the Great Lakes system, so we wanted to bring water into it somehow.”
Mary Rhode, vice president of marketing and communications for On Broadway, Inc., works with Toll through his involvement on On Broadway’s board of directors. Through that board he has supported projects such as the Green Bay Public Market, which is expected to open in the Broadway District later this year.
Rhode says support from Discover Green Bay will play a crucial part in meeting On Broadway’s aggressive goal of attracting 1 million visitors to the market each year.
“Since they’ve rebranded as Discover Green Bay, I feel like they have been so meticulous about conveying all of those many options above and beyond football. Clearly it’s worked. They had more than 6 million visitors last year,” Rhode says. “We know those folks are spreading out and discovering all that there is to see and do throughout Greater Green Bay.”
Hannah Meyer, manager of Titletown marketing and digital for the Green Bay Packers, works with Discover Green Bay to include the Titletown community development as part of visitor itineraries. From social media influencers and travel writers to new teacher groups, Discover Green Bay acts as the travel planner bringing new audiences to the Titletown development beyond the traditional sports enthusiast.
“While our foundation is football, we continue to try to branch out and reach young professionals, and Discover Green Bay helps us do that,” she says.
Front door facelift
Two years after its new brand reveal, Discover Green Bay realized another longtime dream — the construction of Green Bay’s first stand-alone visitors center.
“Most organizations like ours operate visitors centers,” Toll says. “We were one of the only destinations of any size in Wisconsin that didn’t have one. That always bugged me.”
Opening in 2023, the $8 million visitors center was nearly eight years in the making. Rhode says the visitors center acts as a “brand new welcome mat” for the community and was desperately needed.
“Certainly in an NFL city, but aside from that, just a community of our size and the number of attractions that we have, it was long overdue for us to have a true visitors center that provides people not only information, but also gives them a taste and an experience of what this community can offer,” she says.
Located on the corner of Lombardi Avenue and Argonne Drive, the visitors center is visible from Interstate 41, about a mile from Lambeau Field. The space features nods to regional industry with some furniture by local manufacturer KI and a Skee-Ball machine manufactured in Pulaski by Bay Tek Entertainment. It has displays dedicated to the iconic people and places in the community, including Oneida Nation and local waterways.
Toll says the physical space provides a connection point for visitors and Discover Green Bay staff, offering an opportunity to share insider information for a truly customized experience. Travelers often make the visitors center their first stop to get recommendations on dining, attractions and events that fit their specific interests.
“We have people come back and say, ‘Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Your people were wonderful, and they were so excited about the community that it made me more excited,’” Toll says. “And that’s really the whole point of having a building like that.”
“While our foundation is football, we continue to try to branch out and reach young professionals, and Discover Green Bay helps us do that.”
– Hannah Meyer, manager of Titletown marketing and digital, Green Bay Packers
2025 NFL draft
Between launching the Discover Green Bay brand and opening its visitors center, Toll has become an expert at playing the long game. It’s a skill that came in handy when embarking on the decade-long process of courting the NFL in hopes of landing one of its signature events, the annual draft.
Toll says the endeavor began in 2014 at “the very moment the NFL said Radio City [Music Hall] was booked and they have to move the draft to a different city.”
He immediately called the Packers and found they were just as curious about Green Bay’s capacity to host the draft.
“I think compared to other teams, it was the destination marketing organization like Discover Green Bay that was moving it forward,” Toll says. “Here the Packers were just as excited as we were about it. Without the Packers committing staff and resources, there’s just no way that we could have even bid on this.”
The two organizations worked together to prepare a bid that was hundreds of pages long, detailing the city’s facilities, spaces, lodging and transportation capabilities to handle the event.
After several attempts, Green Bay was notified in May 2023 it had won the bid for 2025.
“We are the smallest market in the National Football League by a wide margin, but we are a big community,” said incoming Packers CEO Ed Policy at a draft press conference. “It is fair to say no other community on the planet has as close of a nexus to the past, present and future of the game of football than Green Bay.”
The NFL draft has grown tremendously since its start in 1936. Today the three-day mega event draws millions of televised and online viewers and is covered around-the-clock by major news outlets. The 2024 NFL draft in Detroit set a new record with 775,000 attendees over three days, and generating more than $213 million in economic benefits.
Now Green Bay is up. The draft campus will be staged in the lots surrounding Lambeau Field, Titletown and the Resch Complex. Toll says the collaboration between entities including the NFL; Green Bay Packers; PMI, which operates the Resch; the city of Green Bay; Brown County and the village of Ashwaubenon is complex and will continue to be so as the event approaches.
“This is our Super Bowl,” Toll says. “We’ll never get a Super Bowl, so this is it. And it’s pretty awesome.”
What Toll is most excited for, however, is giving draft attendees a taste of the real Green Bay on game day. That includes parking on the lawns of homes around the Stadium District and probably being invited inside for a bathroom break or bowl of homemade chili.
This unabashed hospitality came as somewhat shocking news even to the NFL representatives Toll has been working with who couldn’t believe locals would be so welcoming to strangers.
“Yeah, well,” Toll says with a shrug. “Welcome to Green Bay.”
2025 NFL DRAFT
Get the latest updates at greenbay.com/draft25
