For any Pittsburgh Steelers fans hoping to follow their favorite team on Bluesky, you’re going to have to wait. Potentially awhile. While organizations like the Steelers try to make a presence on every corner of the Internet, the NFL has evidently put the hold on any team joining Bluesky.
That information came out through the New England Patriots’ social media team, who briefly had an account on the site until the NFL required them to take it down.
“Well, right now we’re not allowed to,” Patriots’ media content VP Fred Kirsch recently said as transcribed by Awful Announcing. “We had an account briefly on Bluesky but the league asked us to take it down because it’s not an approved social media platform for the NFL yet.”
Though I don’t follow NFL social media guidelines closely, this is the first time I’ve heard of an NFL policy that teams must be approved to join social media platforms. It makes sense for the league to have parameters over where teams can post for uniformity’s sake.
It’s not clear why the league is putting the hold on Bluesky. The site sprung up as a Twitter alternative and has grown in popularity in recent months. We have accounts on there with the official Steelers Depot handle followed by more than 9,000 people.
But so far, there’s no social media presence from the Steelers. Instead, their main accounts exist on Twitter/X (3.7 million followers), Instagram (3.8 million followers), Facebook (6 million followers), and TikTok (2.2 million) back online in the United States after briefly being taken down via a new law that had taken effect and then reversed. There is a Steelers account on Bluesky that might appear to be from the team with over 14,000 followers, but it’s not an official account and hasn’t posted since Dec. 5.
Presumably, the NFL will lift its hold at some point. The league wants to advertise far-and-wide and continue being America’s most popular sport. Other sports teams and leagues have joined, including the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Steelers are sure to follow in the near future.
