NFL Announces Dates for 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh
The NFL announced Thursday morning that the 2026 NFL Draft will take place on April 23-25, 2026.
“The main portion of the event is expected to incorporate elements of Pittsburgh’s North Shore and Point State Park, as well as Acrisure Stadium, with a variety of venues to be utilized and activated within close proximity,” Visit Pittsburgh said in a released statement.
For the first time since December of 1947, the City of Pittsburgh will host the NFL Draft.
The NFL announced in May that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ bid in conjunction with Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh was approved for the 2026 NFL Draft.
“The visibility of downtown has to be very quite apparent,” VisitPittsburgh CEO Jerad Bacher said to our partners at WPXI. “So the front of the stage where the viewers would be looking into at the front of the stage would be facing downtown. You could see the stage being located just on this side of Acrisure Stadium facing the downtown area.”
The draft will provide an astronomical economic boost to the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. Detroit hosted the 2024 NFL Draft, and saw an estimated $160 million economic windfall from doing so, while setting an all-time attendance record, with 775,000 people visiting the Motor City for the three-day event in April.
In late May, Pittsburgh leaders announced a plan to revitalize Downtown ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft. Governor Josh Shapiro is involved with the new plan for Downtown.
“We’ll be prepared to step up to make sure that this event goes off well,” Shapiro said. “Not well, pardon me. That this event goes off great. And that everyone who visits Pittsburgh has a wonderful experience, that safety, security, hospitality, all of those issues will be addressed.”
Transformations at Point State Park and Market Square are a part of the revitalization plan ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft.
The plan, which also includes upgrades of a block of Eighth Street in the Cultural District, was released by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh.
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald told Jenna Harner of WPXI that he expects a similar economic windfall and attendance numbers that Detroit experienced.
“We estimated the economic impact to be anywhere from $100 to $150 million. I think last year it was about $165 million in Kansas City that they estimated and we could even exceed that,” Fitzgerald said.
“We’re estimating there’ll be over 300 to 350,000 visitors that would come to Pittsburgh, and putting an economic impact anywhere from 100 million to $150 million. And that’s I think being actually somewhat conservative.”
Green Bay is set to host the 2025 NFL Draft. The draft was held in New York City from 1965-2014, but with the interest in the draft exploding, the league decided to move the event outdoors and explore other NFL cities. In addition to Detroit, the draft has been held in Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Kansas City since 2015.