If you want to blame the Pirates for the Steelers never opening the season at home, you’re in the clear. Mike North, who oversees the NFL’s schedule-making procedure, confirmed that is yet another thing to blame on the Buccos. They very frequently tend to have a homestand when the NFL season opens, which logistically complicates orchestrating a home Steelers game.
While they no longer play in the same stadium, the Steelers and Pirates share certain utilities like parking lots. If they were to play at the same time, it would be very chaotic for the city of Pittsburgh. Many NFL teams share a city with another major sports franchise, though, and they also have their schedule impacted by the logistics.
“It’s definitely impacted by the Pirates’ schedule”, North confirmed on 93.7 The Fan about the Steelers’ dearth of Week 1 home games. Since 2014, the Steelers have opened all but one season on the road. The lone exception was in 2023—then the Pirates didn’t have home games scheduled.
In discussing the MLB playoffs interfering with NFL schedules, North said last year that the Pirates didn’t affect the Steelers’ schedule “yet”. In that context, he was referencing Pittsburgh’s MLB team as a perennial loser. They rarely play long into the NFL season because they don’t make the playoffs.
As a result, the NFL doesn’t have the same problem with the Steelers as it has with, say, the Eagles with the Phillies. Philadelphia actually has a chance of making the playoffs, so the Eagles are less likely to have a large number of home games during the early portions of the season.
For the Steelers, then, it has pretty much been a matter of opening day. Since the NFL doesn’t have to worry about a Pirates postseason run, it’s also probably more likely to avoid conflicts. “Let’s say we go two or three years in a row where the Pirates have a home game on the opening Sunday, and so we can’t or we won’t schedule a Steelers home game that weekend”, North said, who added the league is “constantly aware of it”.
North is, by the way, a Pirates fan, so maybe he’s secretly making sure it’s easier for him to attend games. He did say that they would have to figure out how to have the Steelers and Pirates play on the same day if the latter ever advances to the postseason.
“Maybe someday when the Pirates get good again and start making playoff runs in October, we’ll have to figure out a way to do a Steelers game at 1 o’clock in the afternoon and then maybe the Pirates host an NLCS Game 2 at 8 o’clock that night”, he said, half joking and half dying inside as a true Pirates fan. “I know you guys can do it. But in the regular season, for them, for us, it’s usually something we try to avoid”.
We already knew incontrovertibly that the NFL factors in Pirates games when making the Steelers’ schedule. In 2015, when the Pirates had to reschedule a game, the NFL rescheduled a Steelers preseason game to accommodate.
