It's official: the Pittsburgh Steelers will be the host of the 2026 NFL Draft. Throughout the offseason, there was speculation that this would be the case, and I predicted in April that Pittsburgh would host the draft in 2026. Now the biggest offseason event in professional sports in the United States is coming to The Steel City.
This was first confirmed by reporter Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team and quickly confirmed by both the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Art Rooney II spoke on the decision to bring the draft to his city and believes that it will be the largest visitor event in the history of Pittsburgh.
Rooney's bid to host the draft ultimately proved successful. Now the team and local businesses alike will have just under two years to plan to host this event... and it promises to be huge.
What does the hosting the NFL Draft mean for the city of Pittsburgh?
The Detroit Lions hosted the 2024 NFL Draft, and it was estimated that a whopping 700,000 visitors were in attendance, per NFL.com. This resulted in an estimated revenue spike of $165,000 for the city, according to the Detroit Free Press -- all in just a three-day event.
Though the NFL Draft gets bigger every year (with more than 50 million people watching from home and hundreds of thousands showing up for the event) the City of Pittsburgh isn't expected to have quite the same turnout.
Early estimates predict between 300,000 to 350,000 visitors in Pittsburgh for the 2026 NFL Draft, which could result in a revenue spike of $100-150 million during the event.
If you are planning on attending the 2026 NFL Draft, hosted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, you are going to need to make preparations early. Hotel rooms are expected to be booked quickly.
So much planning and preparation will go into pulling off an event of this magnitude, and Steelers fans are stoked about their team hosting the biggest NFL offseason event.