Editorial: What can Pittsburgh learn from Green Bay and the NFL Draft?

Hosting a large sporting event can be a shiny brass ring that cities are eager to grasp.

Sometimes it’s scored by merit. If your baseball team makes it to October, your city could be home to the World Series. Check off opponents along the way, and the puck could drop in your arena for the Stanley Cup Final.

Sometimes you get there by marketing and deal-making. Hosting the Olympics is a campaign years in the making as bids are whittled down.

The NFL’s major events are the bidding kind. Playoff games may be about merit, but the Super Bowl is orchestrated years in advance. The 2026 championship will be at Levi’s Stadium (San Francisco 49ers), followed by the 2027 title game at SoFi Stadium (Los Angeles Chargers/Los Angeles Rams) and the 2028 championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta Falcons).

But if the Super Bowl is NFL Christmas, its other high holy day is the draft — three days of celebration of the best of college football and the future of the pros.

The 2026 draft will be held in Pittsburgh. With that in mind, a contingent of Steel City area leaders spent part of last week in Wisconsin to see what worked, what didn’t and what could have been better as Green Bay hosted the 2025 event.

While others are Monday-morning quarterbacking the picks and how they will affect favorite teams and fantasy leagues, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato and others will be analyzing a different kind of playbook.

They will pick apart transportation and parking. They will look at security and services.

What they cannot do is see it only through the lens of tourism and marketing. Yes, there will be a huge influx of people coming into Pittsburgh. The Green Bay draft numbers are estimated at about 600,000, second only to the 775,000 in Detroit in 2024. Pittsburgh, by geography as well as football history, has the potential to perform on the same scale.

But the downfall of many cities courting sporting events is long-term spending for a few days’ gain. Cities hosting the FIFA World Cup have lost millions of dollars. The Athens Olympics in 2004 cost $15 billion and are credited by some, in part, as a cause for the Greek financial crisis.

Even those that haven’t had huge losses still have spent questionably, sometimes investing in buildings that had little use later, like the Olympic Village in Berlin or the Beijing beach volleyball venue.

Pittsburgh and Allegheny County won’t be making that kind of investment.

But Pittsburgh Regional Transit is facing shortfalls and cuts. In addressing draft transportation, the agency should look for ideas that could help beyond a three-day event. The same could be said for parking, police and other services.

There is a lot that local leaders can take away from prior events as they plan for the draft. But if plans are made for how the draft can serve Pittsburghers long after the event is over rather than how the city can serve the draft, maybe there is something those who come next can learn.