The city of Pittsburgh gets the honor of hosting the 2026 NFL Draft. A planning committee has been busy at work ironing out the fine details of the exact location of the draft and all of the anticipated festivities... and Pittsburgh Steelers fans are excited.
On February 3, Visit Pittsburgh revealed the masterplan for the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh this year. After a year of speculation, we now know the exact location of the events being held in April.
The 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh willfeature a two-site draft campus. The first site will be held just outside of Acrisure Stadium on Pittsburgh's North Shore. This will be the official site of the draft itself, which includes the Draft Theater and Main Stage, where each selection will be announced.
The second site for the 2026 NFL Draft will be held on the other side of the three-river connection, just across Fort Pitt Bridge, at Point State Park. This will be the location for the Draft Experience, featuring interactive activities, youth programming, food and beverage offerings, and immersive NFL exhibits designed for fans of all ages.
The two-site event by the river will make this a unique NFL Draft experience. The official X account of the NFL dropped a post of the computer-generated images of what the draft setup could look like in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh Steelers fans are already counting down the days until the 2026 NFL Draft
If twelve selections in April's draft weren't enough for Pittsburgh Steelers fans to get excited before, the latest draft location update just gave football fans a jolt of energy they didn't know they needed.
The last time the pro football draft was held in Pittsburgh was on December 19, 1947, at the Fort Pitt Hotel. According to the Beaver County Times, this event included about 40 men crammed into two rooms.
This was roughly two decades before the NFL merger, and the league has grown exponentially since then.
These days, you can expect over 300,000 people in attendance. In 2023, the headcount of attendees at the NFL Draft in Kansas City was roughly 312,000 (over all three days). One year later, the total attendance of the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit was estimated at 775,000, per ESPN, while the number last year at the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay was estimated at 600,000.
While we probably can't expect numbers to be quite so high in Pittsburgh—considering the location of the draft, the lack of parking, and limited open space for fans—it's going to be a three-day event in Pittsburgh like no other the city has ever seen.
Pittsburgh Steelers on social media can't contain their excitement for a draft that is still over two months away, but with the major details and draft locations finalized, it's all starting to come into focus.
The 2026 NFL Draft will be begin on Thursday, April 23 and run through Saturday, April 25, 2026 in Pittsburgh.