Steelers finalize stadium name change, drawing the ire of fans

Steelers fans angry

Perhaps the new naming rights are good; the Steelers will pull in $150 million over 15 years. Not everyone agrees, however. Dan Levey on Twitter quipped that the name change was the worst thing for Heinz Field since Bane (if you have watched any of the Christian Bale Batman movies).

Another Steelers fan Daniel Sass started a petition to have the Steelers ditch the name. His rationale is that anything would have been better than Acrisure Stadium. He started a petition at Change.org, and 8555 people have since signed it.

To a certain degree, he has a valid point. Heinz Field just rolled off the tongue. Similarly, Alcoa Stadium, Iron City Field, or even Dick’s Field could have garnered support. However, none of them apparently had the dollars or felt the investment was worth it.

The issue here isn’t so much the name of who acquired the naming rights. The issue is a matter of tradition. The Steelers, if anything else, have been in the league since 1933 and have a long, proud history, and when you hear the name Pittsburgh, the first thing that people associate with it is the Steelers.

If anything followed the Steelers, it was either Iron City Beer, Heinz Ketchup, or Premanti Brothers. In any case, what irks the fans that have gotten angry is that they feel the Steels sold out to corporate elitism while abandoning their ties to the Pittsburgh community. They are not wrong, not that it will change. The next question is, how does this play out?