Pittsburgh is getting the NFL’s second-biggest annual event this weekend with the draft in town. It’s unlikely Pittsburgh will ever get the NFL’s biggest annual event, though.
Steelers owner Art Rooney II says he’d love to see a Super Bowl in Pittsburgh, but he knows what a long shot it is.
“I wouldn’t take it off the table,” Rooney said on WDVE. “It’s definitely a long shot, and there’s a lot of other cities like us that would love to do that, So maybe maybe it’s down the road a little ways, but I wouldn’t take anything off the table. Let’s put it that way.”
Most NFL owners wouldn’t want a Pittsburgh Super Bowl without a dome in the city, and Rooney says that’s not happening.
“Not in my lifetime, let’s put it that way,” Rooney said when asked if Pittsburgh would ever be a dome city. “Football is an outdoor sport as far as I’m concerned, and I think most Pittsburghers would agree. There’s nothing better than going out and seeing the game with the snow flying and it’s it’s a lot of fun on those kinds of days.”
Pittsburgh also doesn’t have enough hotel rooms for a Super Bowl, which would mean getting the game would require having thousands of attendees stay in cruise ships on the Three Rivers, similar to what Jacksonville did with cruise ships in the St. Johns River when it hosted Super Bowl XXXIX. That’s not impossible, but Rooney knows it’s unlikely.