The 2016 NFL season recently kicked off in September. With successful baseball and hockey teams, Chicagoans are hoping that the Bears will take home a few more wins this year. While we keep our fingers crossed for the Bears this season, we are flashing back to last April when Chicago proudly hosted the 2015 NFL Draft at the Auditorium Theatre.
The city was buzzing with fans supporting their football team during the draft. One popular spot was Pioneer Court, an open area along Michigan Avenue that housed 32 giant NFL team helmets during the draft for fans to take pictures with.
CMRP worked with our customer to create custom bases for the helmets. The helmets sat on 3” OD pipe with a 3/16” wall thickness curved to a 31” inside radius. We curved 32 pieces using the cold rolling method on a pyramid roll machine. Once the pieces were curved to the desired radius, our customer then secured each piece to a cement base to support the helmets and ensure they wouldn’t tip over.
The helmets were so popular with fans that individual NFL teams commissioned their own giant football helmet for their city, headquarters or stadium – all accompanied by a piece of 3” OD pipe with a 3/16” wall thickness curved to a 31” inside radius.