PITTSBURGH — The stage is set in Pittsburgh for what’s expected to be the biggest event the city has ever seen. The NFL Draft, held Thursday through Saturday, is expected to bring as many as 700,000 people to Pittsburgh’s iconic North Shore and Point State Park.
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It will be a special moment for the city, and for the Rooney family, who founded the Steelers in 1933 and still own the team today.
“My great-grandfather and my grandfather would be very proud of the city,” said Dan Rooney III, Steelers vice president of business development and strategy.
He sat down with Channel 11 for a one-on-one interview ahead of the Draft.
Dan is the son of Steelers President Art Rooney II, the grandson of former Steelers president and chairman Dan Rooney and great-grandson of founder and former president and chairman Art Rooney Sr., “The Chief.”
“We heard stories from back in the 1930s about meetings that my great-grandfather would have been in talking about the concept of the NFL Draft,” Dan Rooney said. “Now that we’re in 2026 and the draft will have hundreds of thousands of people in Pittsburgh over the course of the week, I just know that my great-grandfather and my grandfather would be very proud of the city and the Steelers and everyone involved.”
“When you look at just what this year has been from the first regular season game in Ireland to this moment a week from now, what do you think they would say if they could see all this?” asked Channel 11 Anchor Jatara McGee.
“That game we talked about in Dublin was certainly a special one. That’s something I know my grandfather had big plans for,” Rooney said. “The fact that we played a regular season game in 2025, that was a full circle moment. They always talked about how special Pittsburgh was and how Pittsburgh deserves the best. The fact that we have one of the biggest events the NFL can put on in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they would be pumped up about that.”
“They were both north-siders, and the draft is happening in the backyard of the north side. That’s special too,” he said.
Dan Rooney chaired the Draft’s football legacy committee, working alongside former players like Charlie Batch and Mel Blount to honor Western PA’s rich football history.
“Whether it’s The Football Town on the big screen over at the Kamin Science Center to what I’m really excited about next week, all of the Hall of Fame busts that are Western PA-born will travel to Pittsburgh and be on the site of the draft,” he said. “It’s going to be special imagery that I think will last a lifetime for our city, and we’ll be bringing more events back like the Draft in the future, because we’re going to prove that Pittsburgh can handle it.”
Dan Rooney didn’t only grow up around the game, he immersed himself in it, playing little league, then high school and college football at quarterback.
His high school commencement speaker at Shady Side Academy was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
“Did those conversations about bringing the draft to Pittsburgh start then?” McGee joked.
“Not quite then,” Rooney said, chuckling. “That was back when I was a senior at Shadyside graduating, and that was really neat that the commissioner made the trip to Pittsburgh for the graduation, but we weren’t talking about the draft quite then.”
Rooney was also a ball boy for the Steelers and has worked his way up through the organization. Still, he describes himself as a fan of the game and “a football guy at heart,” which makes this week even more special.
“Football is a way of life, and it’s told every day in Pittsburgh,” he said. “The fact that Pittsburgh is going to play home to one of the biggest events the NFL has to offer, that’s truly what I’m most excited about.”
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