Noah Fries | staff writer

Pittsburgh has always been known as a city of grit. Hard work. Blue collar. Perseverance.

For almost as long, Pittsburgh’s major sports teams — the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates — have been known to exemplify those same qualities. The city has also been blessed with success over the years, with Pittsburgh coming to be known as the “City of Champions” after 29 total major team sports championships in its history.

The past few years, however, have been marred by little to no success by the major sports teams. The Pirates haven’t made the playoffs since 2015. The Penguins haven’t made the playoffs since 2022. The Steelers have made the playoffs several times but haven’t advanced past the Wild Card round since 2016.

This year, however, has been full of success for the City of Pittsburgh and its teams. Despite another Wild Card loss for the Steelers, it could be argued that what has been happening in Pittsburgh has been nothing short of historic.

The 2026 NFL Draft comes to Pittsburgh this week for the first time since 1948, when the draft was a small-scale event. Now, as many as 700,000 people are expected to flow into Downtown and the North Shore for the festivities between April 23-25.

According to tourism agency VisitPITTSBURGH, there is an expected economic impact of $120 million to $213 million for the city during the event. Most numbers like this are often overstated, but there is no doubt that bringing the draft to the city will have a major positive impact.

The Pirates have long been the underperforming and underwhelming franchise in Pittsburgh, not having won a World Series since the 1970s, and not having a season above .500 since 2019. Having arguably the stingiest owner in professional sports with Bob Nutting at the helm certainly hasn’t helped either — with the organization consistently coming in the bottom-10 in MLB in terms of payroll.

After another disappointing season in 2025, generational talent Paul Skenes made it evident to Pirates’ ownership that he wanted to compete as soon as possible. Skenes wanted to play meaningful baseball in Pittsburgh. Skenes wanted to win games.

“We want to win the division,” Skenes told Sports Illustrated during spring training. “We want to make the playoffs. That’s it. How we do that, who knows. I don’t want to put a number of games out there because that’s just putting a ceiling on us. We have to go out there and play well every day.”

Encouraged by Skenes, Nutting and General Manager Ben Cherington went out and got high-profile names — Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn, Marcell Ozuna — to help the team compete. The organization also signed 19-year-old phenom Konnor Griffin to the largest rookie contract in team history before he even played a game in the majors.

The Pirates currently have the fifth-best record in baseball through 17 games, just three games behind the first-place Dodgers — a spot that hardly seemed feasible for the team before the year. There is an overwhelming hype for the team throughout Pittsburgh, something that hasn’t happened in quite some time.

The Penguins are another team that has largely exceeded expectations this season. Vegas oddsmakers gave the team just a 9% chance at making the postseason, with the team supposedly being in a rebuilding year with first-year Head Coach Dan Muse. The storylines that came out of Pittsburgh were ‘where should Sidney Crosby be traded?’ and ‘will the Penguins receive the first overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft?’

There was never any inkling from the media that the Penguins would be a postseason team. Nobody believed except for each individual in the locker room.

General Manager Kyle Dubas did a masterful job with offseason and midseason acquisitions, with the team scoring 99 goals from new additions in 2025-26 — 20 more than any other franchise. Anthony Mantha, Ben Kindel and Egor Chinakhov have been unbelievable for the team, but there are several others, like Connor Dewar, that have given the Penguins a unique identity this season.

All these factors culminated in a second-place finish in the Metropolitan Division, giving the Penguins home-ice advantage in the first round of the NHL Playoffs against their cross-state rival Philadelphia Flyers. Game one is set to be played either Saturday or Sunday at PPG Paints Arena in another historic moment for the city.

“I thought right from camp we’ve had those [playoff] intentions and had that belief, and our start was a good example of that,” Crosby told reporters after clinching a playoff berth last week. “So yeah, I think the belief was there, but it takes everybody. We’ve got a great group here, and I’m just really happy to know that we’re going back there.”

With the NFL Draft coming to town, a hopeful start for the Pirates and an unexpected playoff berth for the Penguins, it’s safe to say that Pittsburgh is a sports “tahn” again.

Noah Fries can be reached at friesn@duq.edu