The Pittsburgh Steelers next two games are scheduled to take place at Heinz Field against the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns but as of Friday, there’s no indication that fans will be allowed to attend those contests.
The Steelers sent out an email on Friday to season ticket holders in which they provided an update on potentially having fans at their next two home games in the month of October. Below is a copy of that email:
“Over the last several months, we have been working to create a safe environment for players, staff and fans within Heinz Field. We have had productive communications this week with public health authorities to discuss the possibility of hosting a limited number of fans at Heinz Field soon.
As of today, it has not been determined whether we can host fans for our October home games on Sunday, October 11th and Sunday, October 18th, but we want to alert you that we will contact you by email as soon as we know if fans will be permitted.
Once a decision is made on whether fans are permitted, we will provide details of the seat selection process that will be available to you.
In order to comply with social distancing requirements, we know that we will be working with a greatly reduced seating capacity for Heinz Field.
Please keep an eye on your email as we may only be able to provide minimal advanced notice for you to select seats.
We appreciate your patience and hope to see you back at Heinz Field soon.”
On Thursday, Steelers president Art Rooney II told KDKA Radio during an interview that he thinks the plan the team submitted to the state officials in hopes of having fans soon safely attending games at Heinz Field is a good one.
“We think we have a good plan and we’re anxious to get fans back in the building obviously,” said Rooney. “I think our plan calls for around 12,000 fans socially distanced so that would be our starting point.”
Currently, orders from both State Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine and Governor Tom Wolf limit outdoor gatherings in Pennsylvania to just 250 people, while indoor events are restricted to 25. Those limits have been in place for several weeks now with no signs of them being raised.
After their games in Weeks 5 and 6 against the Eagles and Browns respectively, the steelers next three scheduled contests are all road games against the Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens, and Dallas Cowboys. In summation, it’s not out of the question that the Steelers first home game with fans in attendance might not be until Week 10 when they host the Cincinnati Bengals on November 15.
“I think frustrated is probably the right word as we said I think we’ve been patient, I think we’ve been cooperating and we plan to continue to cooperate and work with the guidelines that we are given, but as I said before it is starting to get to be hard to explain to our fans in comparison to other things that you’re allowed to do now,” said Rooney in his radio interview.
