USA TODAY Sports has live coverage of the 2026 NFL Draft.
On Dec. 15, 1947, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the upcoming NFL draft for the 1948 season would be held in Pittsburgh, although the exact date was unclear. The publication could only determine that representatives from 10 teams would gather sometime that week at the Fort Pitt Hotel, the de facto headquarters of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The 2026 draft, the first time the event has returned to Pittsburgh since, will be much more noticeable this time.
“We had to really work with the NFL to kind of figure out ‘How do we build this draft into a very dense downtown?’ … which is not easy to do,” president and CEO of Visit Pittsburgh Jerad Bachar told USA TODAY Sports by phone last week.
For three days, not only will Pittsburgh be the confluence of three rivers, but a melting pot of NFL fandom. Indeed, the NFL’s takeover will dominate the north shore of the by the Steelers’ home, Acrisure Stadium. The main entrance to the primary draft grounds is located about 200 yards away from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ home stadium, PNC Park.
Steelers wide receiver Michael Pittman relocated this offseason to downtown Pittsburgh after being traded by the Indianapolis Colts. Every time he drives home, he said, another structure related to the draft has been built.
“It’s already getting crazy down here,” Pittman told USA TODAY Sports.
He added: “More and more people are coming. The city is already super sports-themed, so I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like on the weekend of the draft. It’s gonna be nuts.”
The NFL held the draft in New York for decades before moving it to Chicago in 2015. Since 2017, it’s been in a different host city every season, often one that is considered prohibited – by weather, stadium or size – from hosting a Super Bowl. The 2025 draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin, drew more than 600,000 fans, according to the NFL. Only more fans visited Nashville in 2019 for a draft.
Using the reported attendance from past host sites Detroit, Kansas City and Green Bay, Bachar said Pittsburgh modeled its estimate to of 500,000-700,000 over three days, or essentially 250,000 visitors per day. The Steel City’s population is 300,000. A month ago, the city hosted St. Patrick’s Day parade, which usually draws a similar number to what they expect to see daily for the draft.
“We’re looking at this as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade three days in a row,” Bachar said. “So we know we’re going to be ready for it. We know that we have the infrastructure that’s ready for it.”
The Steelers have been working with Visit Pittsburgh hand-in-hand. Visit Pittsburgh visited Kansas City and Detroit to learn hosting best practices. The organization also consulted with Philadelphia and Cleveland.
“Obviously, the bar has been set very high lately … so we’re looking forward to following in that tradition,” Steelers owner and president Art Rooney II told reporters when Pittsburgh was announced as the draft site for this year in 2024.
Rooney added that it could be the largest visitor event in the city’s history.
The school system won’t test that theory, however, as public schools – servicing 19,000 children – are moving to online learning from Wednesday to Friday. (Green Bay also closed schools last year.) Visit Pittsburgh met with school officials earlier this year.
“We wanted them to have as much information as early as possible so they could decide what their school schedule was going to be,” Bachar said.
The biggest takeaway from meeting with other host cities, Bachar said, is that the NFL wants the draft front and center – simple as that may sound. The City of Bridges will be the backdrop for roughly 55 million viewers over three days. The angle of the stage and the angles provided by drone footage will highlight the confluence of the three rivers and the city’s architecture.
“The way to celebrate Pittsburgh is really just to show up and look at all of the amazing investment going into the city because of this event,” Bachar said.
The downtown area’s civic benefits – roads completed, sidewalks repaired, beatification projects finished – will outlast draft weekend. The event is free, and fans can access downtown via free rides on the light rail system or the park and ride system.
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