Pittsburgh to host 2026 NFL Draft

The NFL Draft is headed to the Steel City.

Pittsburgh has been awarded the 2026 draft, the league announced Wednesday. It beat out several cities for the right to host the three-day event, with more than a dozen cities submitting bids to host either the 2026 NFL Draft or the 2027 NFL Draft, CBS Sports reported. 

It's unclear where in Pittsburgh the event will be held. Visit Pittsburgh president and CEO Jerad Bachar told radio station WTAE that the city's North Shore next to Acrisure Stadium would make the most sense. Bachar, who is a part of the city's bid for the event, added that "all of downtown would be really activated for the event." 

The city of Pittsburgh expressed previous interest in hosting the draft, submitting a bid for 2025. Green Bay was ultimately awarded next year's draft, which will be held at Lambeau Field. 

The NFL has taken the draft on the road for most of the past 10 years, a change after holding it in New York City for 50 straight years. Chicago became the first city other than New York to host the event since the 1960s — in 2015 and then again in 2016. A different city has hosted the draft each year since, with the exception being the COVID-affected 2020 draft that was entirely remote.

Switching which city hosts the NFL Draft has added to the spectacle in recent years. Hundreds of thousands of fans annually attend the event as a result of the change. Detroit set a new record for the highest attendance this past April, with over 775,000 fans attending the three-day event. 

Pittsburgh will actually be hosting the draft for the third time, having previously done so in 1948 and 1949 at local hotels. The state of Pennsylvania has hosted 16 drafts, most recently in Philadelphia in 2017.