Detroit is fresh off a record-setting performance as host of the NFL Draft, drawing 775,000 fans to this year's event in Motor City. Green Bay will be up next in 2025. And now the NFL has confirmed Pittsburgh will join the crowd, awarding the city the 2026 NFL Draft, as CBS Sports lead NFL insider Jonathan Jones reported earlier.
League executives are meeting in Nashville this week, where the previous draft-attendance record was set in 2019, and "there (was) a strong sense" Pittsburgh would get the official nod, Jones reported Wednesday morning.
Pittsburgh was reportedly one of more than a dozen cities to submit a bid to host the draft in 2026 or 2027, with Steelers spokesman Burt Lauten proclaiming the draft would be "if not the largest, one of the largest events to ever be hosted here." Submission committee members mentioned Pittsburgh's North Shore, near the Steelers' Acrisure Stadium, as a logical destination for the event, but predicted that "all of downtown would (also) be activated" for draft weekend.
The Steelers reportedly previously vied to host the draft in 2025, but that event has already been awarded to Green Bay, which will feature the rookie-selection showcase near Lambeau Field.
Pittsburgh has only hosted one other NFL Draft, and that was back in December 1947, for the 1948 NFL season, at the since-razed Fort Pitt Hotel, located at Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh's "Golden Triangle" downtown.
