Why Are Pittsburgh Steelers Playing in Ireland in 2025?
NEW ORLEANS — The Pittsburgh Steelers will be hosting a game in Ireland in 2025, and it’s only a matter of time until that game will be announced.
The NFL has already announced the venues and home teams for games in Madrid, Spain and Berlin, German for the 2025 season, and on Wednesday, announced plans to play in Melbourne, Australia in 2026.
The finishing touches are still being put on plans to have the Steelers play the first NFL regular season game in Ireland this fall.
“It’s no secret we’re having great conversations with Ireland around a potential game in Dublin,” NFL vice president Peter O’Reilly said to Steelers Now on Wednesday. “That continues to be worked through and we hope to have more to share with that in not-so-distance future.”
Sources told Steelers Now that an announcement could take place this week.
The NFL is looking to continue to expand the number of markets it hosts international games. Madrid and Berlin are new markets for the league this year, following a game in São Paulo, Brazil in 2024.
“That’s bringing a regular season game in a new market,” O’Reilly said. “Obviously, we’ve played a lot of games in London, but going to Ireland, with the right partnership, is something that we know will be really special and move our game forward. Bringing something to our fans in Ireland is something that we continue to be excited about as we finalize that.”
Ireland has long been on the NFL’s shortlist to host a regular season game. The Steelers played the Chicago Bears in a preseason game at Croke Park in Dublin in 1997. Croke Park is also expected to be the venue again this time around. The Steelers have long ties to the country, and former owner Dan Rooney was the American ambassador to Ireland.
“Having spent time there, having seen the passionate fans in Ireland, having met them, having seen the events the watch parties that we’ve done, having seen the Steelers watch parties, having seen the level of engagement, we know that a game in Ireland would be hugely successful,” O’Reilly said.
Why Ireland and Not Mexico?
The Steelers have international marketing rights in Ireland and Northern Ireland, Mexico and added Germany to that list last year, with president Art Rooney II saying he’d eventually like to play in all three markets.
The Steelers had been seen as likely to host their first international game in Mexico in 2025, but delays to the renovations on Estadio Azteca in Mexico City have put its ability to host an NFL game in the 2025 season in doubt. The stadium is being renovated ahead of the 2026 World Cup, and O’Reilly said on Thursday that the NFL does not yet know when it will be able to return to the stadium. Though the NFL may explore other Mexican markets in the future, it is committed to playing at Azteca when it returns to Mexico, which last hosted a game in 2022.
The Steelers must host an international game once every eight seasons, according to the new league rules put in place when they made the move to go to a 17-game regular season schedule in 2021. They have played just once internationally, as the visitors in London in 2013.
NFL teams alternate between having eight and nine home games under the 17-game schedule. International host teams always give up their home game in a year where they have nine, so if the Steelers waited for the stadium in Mexico City, they would not have been able to host until 2027.
Instead, it appears that the trip to Ireland has moved to the front of the line, with an announcement on the location of the game and the Steelers as the host team expected shortly.
Their opponent in Dublin likely won’t be announced until a later date. The Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings are all possible opponents