How the NFL Draft is Shaping the Future of Pittsburgh

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The Pittsburgh that nearly one million people will be setting their eyes on in April won’t be the Pittsburgh of years past.

The NFL Draft has taken a chisel to the Steel City, carving out a new, shiny image from its Rust Belt legacy. Hosting the 2026 Draft has spurred a wave of development, beautification and enthusiasm in Pittsburgh, one that officials say will last far beyond the three-day wave of visitors and residents that will be flooding Downtown, the North Shore and nearby neighborhoods in April.

While the impact won’t stop at the city limits — the entire region is expecting to see an influx of tourists — it’ll be felt nowhere quite like in Pittsburgh, which will see the largest attendance of any event in the city’s history.

Officials have estimated anywhere from 500,000 to 700,000 attendees will be in the region when the Draft takes place from April 23-25. Former Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, who served in the office from 2022 to 2026, has said he thinks it could be one million people who show up.

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A coalition including nonprofits, businesses and elected officials have formed a local organizing committee, the group responsible for planning what the Draft will look like in Pittsburgh. Heading the efforts is VisitPittsburgh, the city’s official tourism agency, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. That collaboration is part of the reason why the NFL wanted Pittsburgh to host the Draft, according to David Morehouse, the Steelers’ executive vice president for strategy.

“One of the reasons Pittsburgh was selected was because of the collaboration and the process that we were able to put together between the business community, the political leadership, the nonprofits and actually organized labor,” he says. “I think the NFL was impressed with how quickly we were able to get people together on the same page and moving in the same direction.”

And now, all of them have banded together to capitalize on the NFL Draft’s potential for the city.

Bringing Gold to the Black-and-Gold City

Perhaps the most obvious effect of the Draft is the surge of visitors that will bring millions of dollars to the region through shopping, eating at local restaurants and staying in local hotels. Gov. Josh Shapiro celebrated Pittsburgh’s selection for the Draft during remarks in spring 2024.

“This is going to be huge, not just for their football fans out there, not just for folks who love the Steelers, but for all Pittsburghers, for all Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said at the time. “Because what this means is we are going to see our restaurants packed, our bars overflowing, every single hotel room is going to be booked.”

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Overall, it’s estimated the Draft will have between $120 million to $213 million in economic impact across the region, according to VisitPittsburgh CEO Jerad Bachar. Detroit, which hosted the Draft in 2024, reported a $213.6 million overall economic impact — including $161.3 million in new spending — with $106.4 million of that money being retained long-term within the region as new income for households, businesses and in taxes.

But the real value might not even be in the dollar; the Draft gives Pittsburgh a national platform to showcase itself — and build a new reputation separate from its gritty, industrial past.

Bachar said the organizing committee has worked with the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council and The Andy Warhol Museum to create a campaign that represents Pittsburgh’s arts and culture. The NFL communications team and its broadcast partners say they are working to “tell the story of technology,” focusing on Pittsburgh’s robotics and AI industries.

“It’s our responsibility to tell the story of contemporary Pittsburgh, and you can’t tell the story of Pittsburgh in a modern sense without talking about arts and culture and tech,” Bachar says. “I really do think that represents who we are as a city now and moving forward.”

Gainey agrees. The former mayor worked with the Steelers’ owners, the Rooney family, to bring the Draft to Pittsburgh, and he knows the potential it has to change people’s perception of the city.

“A lot of people that haven’t been here in decades. They remember the commercials and the marketing of us being a Steel City, and so their image of what this city is is around our steel industry,” Gainey says. “People will see the city not for what it used to be, but for what it is today. They’ll see an image of a city that has definitely transcended over the years.”

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Putting the Steel in Steel City

While it’s putting an emphasis on arts and new technology, the Draft also has Pittsburgh steeling itself — literally.

The Draft has spurred a burst of construction across the city. Among the projects are: Point State Park’s $3.4 million renovation project finished months ahead of schedule. It fixed leaks, improved lighting on the iconic fountain, repaired walkways and utilities and improved landscaping.

Pittsburgh International Airport finished a $1.7 billion project to open a new terminal to welcome travelers ahead of the Draft.  Downtown saw the creation of Arts Landing, a 4-acre space on Eighth Street with a 1-acre Great Lawn and bandshell, pickleball courts, a relaxation area and a play room for families, all a part of a $31 million project.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is overseeing a roughly $15 million makeover in Market Square that doubles the outdoor dining area, eliminates perimeter parking and installs a semi-circular pavilion with LED lighting. It also adds an open-air steel anchor pavilion and 33 more trees, plus makes Market Square ADA compliant.

There’s one thing all of these projects have in common (aside from the multimillion-dollar price tag) — officials say all of them were on a tight timeline to finish before the Draft comes to town in April. Yes, it’s work that officials wanted done regardless, but the Draft gave an imminent deadline, Bachar says.

“They weren’t done specifically for the Draft, but because the Draft is coming, it was certainly something that those developers could lean on to say, ‘Look, we need to raise the funds to get these projects done, and we need to do it by the end of April of 2026,’” he says. “Nothing motivates a community, from a development standpoint, [more] than a deadline.”

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A Cleaner, Greener Pittsburgh

Beautification has been a key component to preparing Pittsburgh for the Draft, particularly in Downtown and the North Shore where the Draft and the majority of activities will be. Bachar says the Draft will have “an environmental presence that will live on for generations” through greenery projects, including planting trees to beautify the North Shore as well as underserved neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.

There’s also a countywide effort to “redd up” Pittsburgh for the Draft, a catchy and all-encompassing term for a swath of initiatives akin to cleaning the house before a guest comes over.  That includes the Immaculate Collection, a litter clean-up initiative spearheaded by Allegheny CleanWays, which is simultaneously a fun recognition of Franco Harris’ legendary play and a serious effort to make a permanent dent in littering across Allegheny County.

According to Allegheny CleanWays Executive Director Caily Grube, litter attracts litter, so the Immaculate Collection provides an opportunity to “deep clean” Pittsburgh while educating people about the impacts of littering.

“The more you clean up litter, that helps with preventing it. … There’s a reason why people aren’t littering in front of well-maintained museums or other spaces,” Grube says. “Litter doesn’t just impact first impressions, it also impacts how we see ourselves and our civic pride.”

The Immaculate Collection kicked off in 2025 with a campaign to get sponsors for up to 100 miles of state highways regularly maintained through two-year contracts, with the aim to keep it running “in perpetuity,” Grube says.

Before the initiative was announced in September, Allegheny CleanWays was already a quarter of the way to meeting that goal, Grube says. Clean-up crews have been going neighborhood to neighborhood in Pittsburgh since the fall.

“The attention that we’re hoping to garner from this campaign about the issue, and details around the issue, we’re hoping to create longer-term behavioral change of people who are littering,” she says.

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Making Pittsburgh Proud

At the crux of all the Draft efforts is civic pride. It comes up often in press conferences and conversations with those involved in planning.

“I think this collective spirit around our Steelers and having the NFL Draft is something that, at the end of the day, people will remember … We know that people reside in other cities, but they call Pittsburgh home,” Gainey says. “It’ll be good for them to be able to see coming home and be able to showcase where they grew up.”

The Draft is an opportunity to show everything that makes Pittsburgh unique; besides its rich football history, the city has a wealth of arts, tech and a strong desire to better every neighborhood, every day, he adds.

“You want to improve all 90 neighborhoods every single day, so it’s not just about the Draft coming here. It’s how you get better every day,” Gainey says. “What do we have to do to have a city that we’re proud of, that we’re more proud of today than we were yesterday? Every day is a day for improvement in this city. And as long as our mindset is focused on how we improve every day, we will continue.”