The big news of the Pittsburgh Steelers offseason is here. Acrisure Stadium bathrooms are being renovated.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Mark Belko, the Steelers are spending $1.4 million to upgrade twelve restroom facilities at the stadium this offseason. Primarily, upper-deck restrooms that still have troughs in the men’s bathroom will be replaced by urinals and dividers.
From Belko:
“In all, the Steelers, through affiliate PSSI Stadium Corp., plan to replace the troughs with about 95 urinals and dividers in the two restrooms. In addition, those facilities will receive a new floor coating as part of their regular maintenance.
Eight women’s restrooms on the upper east, west and north sides of the stadiums also will receive the new floor coating.”
There probably aren’t many NFL stadiums that have troughs anywhere inside their stadium but the Steelers still do, playing in a stadium built back in 2001. Even at the time, the idea was criticized and it’s surprising it’s taken this long for the team to make the upgrade.
According to the Post-Gazette, the remodeling will take place over the coming months and should be ready for when the Steelers return to action this summer.
The Steelers’ stadium opened in 2001 as Heinz Field and kept that name until the 2022 season when Acrisure bought the naming rights. Heinz still has a presence inside the stadium but a smaller one with the actual ketchup bottles fixed to the scoreboard replaced by digital versions.
In December, the site Sportsnaut ranked every NFL stadium and Acrisure came in a disappointing 19th place with the site writing:
“Does a stadium name change influence our NFL stadium rankings? Yes, yes it does. The brand ‘Heinz Field’ added something to this place, even if it only started in 2001. Suddenly, that feeling is gone with the Steelers taking the money to call this place Acrisure Stadium. The organization deserves mockery and if the new money doesn’t mean renovations, this place could drop even further in our 2023 NFL stadium rankings.”
The name change was a definite downgrade and though that naming rights money is already paying for some renovations, better bathrooms probably isn’t going to cut it for Steelers’ fans. There’s no word on if the organization will conduct any other renovations to other parts of the stadium.
Whether or not Pittsburgh has a brighter 2023 season remains to be seen. But at least fans will get to use the restroom in privacy.
