The Steelers have played in eight Super Bowls in their franchise history and won six of them. You could consider the franchise a bit of an expert on attending and winning them. They do have the most Super Bowl wins in the NFL, after all.
Attending so many, one would think they would be fairly good at hosting one. That’s just what Art Rooney II and the Steelers franchise intend on doing.
Don’t salivate too much. If granted, the city wouldn’t host until Super Bowl LVII… in 2023.
ESPN reported on Wednesday that Art II made a formal statement with city leaders letting them know that the franchise has put in a formal application. Rooney handed in that application at the owners meeting back in May.
ESPN notes Rooney as saying:
"We met this morning with local community leaders to provide an update on formally submitting our application to the NFL to bid for Super Bowl LVII in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. The application is an early step in the bidding process, and we will continue to meet with representatives of the Mayor’s Office, County Executive’s Office, VisitPittsburgh, Allegheny Conference as well as other community leaders to review the requirements with the hopes of submitting our bid to host Super Bowl LVII in 2023."
They are certainly covering their bases, as hosting the largest sporting event in the world is no easy task.
The makeup of the team will be completely different than it is now – Roethlisberger will be 41 years old and potentially retired by that point. The youngest defensive stud on the team, Cameron Heyward, will be 34… and probably doing a farewell tour a la Brett Keisel or somewhere else completely.
But, wouldn’t it be great if Pittsburgh played host to its own team? The rub there is that has never happened in the history of the modern era of the NFL. Ever. In fact, there’s a “Home Field Curse” that teams contract – not only do they not make it to the Super Bowl, but barely have a fighting chance of getting into the playoffs that year.
There’ a first for everything, and I would say what better way to break that kind of tradition than to have the Steelers represent (and then win of course) the AFC in the Super Bowl if Pittsburgh hosted one.
Of course, the application needs approved, and the Steelers won’t be the only team bidding on hosting. Bids for the Super Bowl in 2023 won’t go into consideration until 2018 with the host winner announced in 2019.
So, take a deep breath. Forget that we ever talked about this, and wait for a few years….
Next: Cam Heyward: The Promising Bust
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