The city of Pittsburgh and the Steelers organization have been preparing to hopefully host either the 2026 or 2027 NFL Draft over the last several months. The NFL reportedly sent some scouts to the city during the 2023 season, and team president Art Rooney II has said that the Steelers are hopeful about hosting one of the NFL’s biggest events.
Andrew Stockey of WTAE reported on X that NFL VP of league events Peter O’Reilly has informed the Pittsburgh news station that the city is on the short list for hosting the draft in 2026.
“There are more than 20 clubs, cities who are interested in hosting the draft,” O’Reilly said via WTAE. “That’s been winnowed down, and Pittsburgh is part of a small subset. If Pittsburgh is to be awarded, we would dig in right away. It’s a multi-year process, typically about a two-year process that you’re working once a city is awarded.”
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The city of Detroit just showed out really well hosting the 2024 draft, breaking the record previously set by Nashville in 2019 with more than 700,000 people attending over the course of the three days.
It provides an economic boon for whichever city gets selected to host, and Pittsburgh could be coming up. A Detroit news outlet, WXYZ Detroit, reported an estimated $165 million in economic impact for the city with the record-breaking attendance.
The draft was hosted in New York City for years, but the NFL started to move the host city in 2015 with a two-year stint in Chicago. Since then, it has been hosted in Philadelphia, Arlington, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Detroit.
Pittsburgh has not hosted the event since it has become the massive spectacle that it is now, but it did actually host back in 1948 at the Fort Pitt Hotel. The event used to be small enough to host at a hotel, and now it pulls in hundreds of thousands.
The 2025 host is already decided, with Green Bay preparing to host next year, but Pittsburgh announced its bid in February to host either the 2026 or 2027 event. The announcement typically comes in May, so Pittsburgh could be receiving some great news sometime in the next month.
