NASHVILLE — The NFL has awarded the 2026 draft to Pittsburgh, and the Steelers are ready to tap Pennsylvania’s deep football tradition while trying to meet the new standard for host cities in the league’s biggest offseason event.
League officials announced the decision Wednesday as part of the NFL spring meetings, which wrapped up after three days at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Team owners chose Pittsburgh after reviewing the bid along with the advisory committee.
The three-day draft, typically held in late April, will be at Pittsburgh’s Point State Park and Acrisure Stadium, where the Steelers play their home games. Point State Park is at the city’s three-river juncture of the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio, with the stadium on the other side of the Allegheny from the park.
The NFL set a record with more than 775,000 fans attending the most recent draft last month in Detroit — that broke the record Nashville set in 2019 — and Green Bay, Wisconsin, will be hosting the 2025 draft on April 24-26 at Lambeau Field, the home of the Packers.
Steelers owner Art Rooney II said Detroit this year and Kansas City in 2023 set a very high bar for draft sites that follow. Rooney said the team looks forward to following that tradition by tapping into the roots of pro football in a state that sent Pro Football Hall of Famers Mike Ditka, Dan Marino and Joe Montana — among others — to the NFL.
“We think it’ll be the largest visitor event in the history of Pittsburgh, hosting hundreds of thousands of people and really football fans from all over the country,” Rooney said. “Certainly, the Steelers Nation from all over the country we think will come for a visit. So we just look forward to hosting that.”
The NFL began rotating its annual draft around the country in 2015, starting in Chicago after holding the event in New York from 1965 to 2014. Philadelphia hosted in 2017, followed by Dallas in 2018, Nashville in 2019, Cleveland in 2021, Las Vegas in 2022 and Kansas City in 2023.
The Steelers are excited for their to get its turn at hosting the NFL draft, and long snapper Christian Kuntz can’t wait for the opportunity as a Pittsburgh native.
“It’s always been in a massive city like Vegas or somewhere like that,” Kuntz said, “so just for the Yinzers to experience that, it’s going to be awesome.”
Tight end Pat Freiermuth agreed.
“Obviously it’s good for Pittsburgh, great for local restaurants and bars around there obviously with the revenue stuff,” Freiermuth said. “It’s great for fans from all over the country, all over the world to come to Pittsburgh and check out what a great city it is.”
AP photo by George Walker IV / From left, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee Titans owners Kenneth Adams IV, Amy Adams Strunk and Barclay Adams, and team president and CEO Burke Nihill take part in a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the team’s new stadium on Feb. 29 in Nashville.Nashville feels ‘Super’
Nashville, the home of the Tennessee Titans since 1998, has already shown it knows how to throw a draft party.
How about a Super Bowl party?
Team owners got a chance to check out “Titans House” during the spring meetings as the Titans and Music City step up their pitch to host a Super Bowl as soon as possible.
Titans House is a showplace featuring the design elements for the team’s enclosed stadium under construction — it’s due to open in 2027 and will known as Nissan Stadium, just like the current venue — down to a detailed model, bar, luxury suite and one of the porch-style patios that will encircle the venue.
Goodell said the stadium will be amazing, and the NFL already saw fans’ passion during the 2019 draft as they packed the honky tonk district on Broadway.
While the Super Bowl is not always held in a warmer-weather city, a dome — or at least a roof that closes — is essential for host stadiums outside of those regions. The NFL’s next three Super Bowls have been allocated to New Orleans (2025), Santa Clara, California (2026) and Los Angeles (2027), which means the Titans would have at least a little time to settle in at their new home before turning their attention to such a big task.
“I think a Super Bowl here would be very successful,” Goodell said. “But we’ll get to that once we get a little further down the line with the stadium.”
The Titans’ franchise history began as the AFL’s Houston Oilers in the 1960 season, with the team moving to Tennessee ahead of the 1997 season and playing in Memphis that year. They continued to play as the Tennessee Oilers the following season in Nashville at Vanderbilt University before their current stadium opened in 1999 and they became the Titans.
That season also included the franchise’s lone Super Bowl appearance. Tennessee lost 23-16 to the St. Louis Rams on Jan. 30, 2000, as Super Bowl XXIV at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome came down to the final play and the Titans came a yard short of the goal line.