As expected, the Pittsburgh Steelers won’t be playing a regular season in Mexico during the 2018 regular season.
On Wednesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the Kansas City Chiefs will play the Los Angeles Rams in Mexico City at some point during the 2018 regular season during his annual end-of-the-season Super Bowl press conference.
“Over the past two seasons, we have seen the extraordinary passion that exists for NFL football in Mexico,” Goodell said. “We are excited for another memorable event at Estadio Azteca as the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs head to Mexico City in 2018.”
The date of the game between the Chiefs and Rams has not been set yet as the NFL does not finalize its schedule until April.
Almost exactly one year ago, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com reported that the Steelers were working on a potential 2018 game in Mexico City at Azteca Stadium. However, not long after that report surfaced, Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Steelers would not play in Mexico in 2018.
Steelers team president Art Rooney II said during a May 2015 interview that the team would likely play in Mexico at some point in the next several years, but did not specify exactly which year.
“We have thrown our name in the hat,” Rooney said. “I dont know how quickly that will happen. I dont think that it will be in 2017, but as you may know, the league came to an agreement with the authorities in Mexico to hold three games in Mexico. The first was this past season, so there’s sort of two more on the schedule and obviously the potential for that to continue beyond that. So, we think we’ll be on that schedule one of these years, but we have not been given any time frame so far.”
So, will the Steelers play in Mexico during the 2019 season? It’s hard to speculate that far out right now but the Steelers will have road games against the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers and a yet-to-be-decided AFC West team during the 2019 season. It would make sense for one of those three games to be played in Mexico should the Steelers decide that’s what they want to do. The Steelers have an extremely large fan base in Mexico.
Rooney has also stated in the past that the NFL might play some games in Germany at some point in the future.
The 2013 season was the last time the Steelers played a game overseas and that was in London, England at Wembley Stadium against the Minnesota Vikings. The Steelers last played a game in Mexico in 2000 and that was a preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts. Paid attendance for that game was 87,145.
