Steelers Take First Step in Bidding Process to Host 2023 Super Bowl

According to a statement released by Steelers President Art Rooney II on Wednesday, the team has taken the first step in the bidding process to host Super Bowl LVII in 2023. Nobody can accuse them of procrastinating!

Per the statement: “The application is an early step in the bidding process, and we will continue to meet with representatives of the mayor’s office, county executive’s office, VisitPittsburgh, Allegheny Conference as well as other community leaders to review requirements with hopes of submitting our bid to host Super Bowl LVII in 2023.”

The application submitted at the owners meetings in May was just the beginning of what will be a very long process. In October 2018 the NFL will decide which, of the teams that applied, will be able to formally submit a bid. The host city will be chosen by the league the following year, in May 2019.

Traditionally the Super Bowl has been held in cities with warm-weather climates, with only occasional exceptions made for cold-climate cities with dome stadiums. The NFL, however, opened the door to the rest of the league when it selected the Giants bid to host Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in 2014.

Many speculated the cold weather and snow in New York City would prove disastrous, but the hoopla was largely overblown. Though there were some travel delays and some public transportation hiccups, the Broncos were a much bigger disaster than any of the logistics.

Nobody in the league office was concerned about winter weather four months later, when it was announced that the Vikings had been awarded hosting duties for Super Bowl LII in 2018. And it doesn’t get really get much more miserable than Minnesota in January.

The issue with Pittsburgh is more the size of the city than the weather. With a population of just over 300,000, it’s about half the size of Detroit and one third the size of Indianapolis and Jacksonville, three of the smaller cities to have hosted the Super Bowl in recent years.

That being said, Pittsburgh metropolitan area is on par (in terms of size) with the metro area of Tampa, which has been hosting the championship game regularly for decades. And mayor Bill Peduto says the region has (or will have) more than enough hotel rooms to house the hundreds of thousands of people that flock to the event each year.

The team has already put together an advisory board to visit past and future host cities, which will help them get a better feel for what the NFL looks for. So it sounds like the Steelers are looking to make a very serious run at bringing the Super Bowl to Heinz Field.