DETROIT (AP) — The NFL draft has a new attendance record after more than 775,000 fans flooded downtown Detroit for the three-day event.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer revealed Saturday at Campus Martius Park that Detroit had broken the record, and the league later released its estimate of the crowd size.

“We have shown the world what the Motor City is all about,” Whitmer said.

While it will take years to know if this week’s picks panned out, there’s no doubt that Detroit made the most of an opportunity to host hundreds of thousands of fans and show 50-plus million viewers the new-look city.

Motown beat Music City’s three-day attendance record of 600,000 set in 2019, when fans filled Broadway in Nashville.

The NFL did not charge fans to attend the event in Detroit, though the visitors and area residents were expected to generate more than $160 million in economic impact at sold-out hotels, packed bars and restaurants, and retail stores in the heart of downtown.

Twenty-plus teams are engaged in talks with the league to host a future draft, which is of particular interest in colder-climate cities that probably can’t expect to get a Super Bowl.

Green Bay is on the clock as next year’s host.

This year’s edition kicked off with a very Detroit opening on Thursday night that included rap icon Eminem on stage with Hall of Famers Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson, along with current Lions stars Jared Goff, Aidan Hutchinson and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Chicago, as expected, drafted Southern California’s Caleb Williams at No. 1 overall. The Bears took Iowa punter Tory Taylor on Saturday in the fourth round.

“Hey, you’re not going to punt too much here,” Taylor said Williams wrote to him in a text message.

Williams was the first of a record five quarterbacks picked among the top 10, including Atlanta’s surprising selection of Michael Penix Jr. a month after giving Kirk Cousins a big contract.

With Denver drafting Bo Nix out of Oregon at No. 12, a mark was matched for signal-callers selected in the first round.

In all, a record-setting 23 offensive players were drafted in the opening round.

After Nix went to the Broncos, the New Orleans Saints were the next team to take a quarterback when they drafted Spencer Rattler of South Carolina in the fifth round with the 150th pick overall. The string of selections without a quarterback was the longest since 1967.

Teams started out by taking offensive players at an unprecedented rate in the first round — including a record-tying seven wide receivers — without a defensive player coming off the board until Indianapolis took UCLA edge rusher Laiatu Latu at No. 15 overall.

In a sign of the times, a running back wasn’t drafted until Carolina grabbed Jonathon Brooks of Texas with the 46th pick in what was the second-latest pick at the once-coveted position.

There was a run of running backs in the fourth round with seven selected, starting with Miami taking Jaylen Wright of Tennessee at No. 120 overall.

Defense was the focus on Day 2, with 20 players on that side of the ball coming off the board in the second round and 17 more in the third.

With the last pick of the fifth round, the New York Jets selected a prospect who didn’t have a snap of college football experience.

In Detroit, the crowd cheered each time the Lions made a pick or when a Michigan player was selected.

The national-title winning Wolverines had the most players drafted, starting with Minnesota moving up to take quarterback J.J. McCarthy at No. 10 overall.

Michigan finished with 13 players drafted, trailing the total of just three schools since the draft went to seven rounds in 1994, including Georgia’s 2022 national championship team that had a record 15 players picked.

AP Pro Football Writer Dennis Waszak Jr. in Florham Park, New Jersey, contributed to this report.