PITTSBURGH — After two years of planning, the 2026 NFL Draft campus is coming to life on Pittsburgh’s North Shore and Point State Park, spanning 4 million square feet – or 68 football fields.
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Front and center, of course, is the Draft Theater: an arch-style structure featuring a mile of truss and 1,300 LED panels. It was an active construction zone Thursday morning, with dozens of crews hard at work.
“We’re moving along very well,” Steve Farago, NFL director of operations, said. “We’ll continue that build right up until about Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. We’ll go into our rehearsal mode.”
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Once the scenic and production elements are installed, crews will layer in lighting and TV cameras, along with seating, hospitality tents and broadcast sets.
Hundreds of thousands of people will be packed into that space, so when it comes to crowd control, Farago said his team will be monitoring it closely from the start.
“…Getting ahead of it, right? Making sure we have contingency plans in place, if we feel like one area might be getting overcrowded or become unsafe,” Farago said.
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Channel 11 asked Farago, as of one week out, what the biggest logistical concern is right now and how the NFL plans to address it.
“…Just making sure we stay on our timelines, I think, right? We have daily meetings to make sure everybody is hitting their marks. We want to make sure that we’re ready to go for Thursday at 12 o’clock,” Farago said.
The Draft Experience is free for all fans. Fans can register for free access to the draft via the NFL OnePass app or at NFL.com/DraftAccess.
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