2026 Pittsburgh
NFL Draft
Local government and a publicly funded nonprofit plan to direct at least $18.9 million toward the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, with hopes of generating at least $120 million in economic impact for the region.
Pennsylvania, Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh have collectively earmarked at least $14 million, meant to help the county’s official tourism agency — VisitPittsburgh — as it leads local planning for the NFL Draft.
As a requirement for receiving state funding, the nonprofit must put up $5 million in matching funds. VisitPittsburgh plans to create the required match “through a combination of committed resources dedicated to the event,” said Alex Kenzakoski, the nonprofit’s director of communications. Those “committed resources” include $5 million in contributions from corporations, Kenzakoski said.
The nonprofit’s $2 million contribution covers the county’s and city’s respective match requirements.
Outside of VisitPittsburgh’s efforts, the state and city have collectively spent at least $3 million on litter cleanup, street signal upgrades and marketing.
The millions in public dollars directed toward the NFL Draft pale in comparison to the amount VisitPittsburgh says the region will generate in return: between $120 million and $213 million.
“So often everybody thinks this is for visitors,” said Mayor Corey O’Connor at a press conference Wednesday. “This is also for Pittsburghers.”
Still, some Pittsburghers are unconvinced that the draft will bring substantial and direct economic gain to the city. And even if it does, others want to see city officials reinvest those returns into low-income or otherwise marginalized neighborhoods.
“When you see something coming to the city, like the NFL Draft, this is a good place to springboard to the much broader conversation: How can we start developing a community economic plan for underserved neighborhoods and communities?” said Rashad Byrdsong, a longtime activist and the founder of Community Empowerment Association.
Public Source has submitted Right-to-Know Law requests for additional information related to the NFL Draft, but has not yet received requested documents. In the meantime, here’s what we know:
Public dollars drive draft
While the football league assumes most of the planning responsibilities required by the draft, the state, county and city are bringing together various resources to support those efforts.
State and local government encompassing Pittsburgh funnelled those resources primarily through VisitPittsburgh. Accordingly, each has made monetary commitments to the nonprofit since 2024, when the NFL selected Pittsburgh as its 2026 draft host.
The state alone provided VisitPittsburgh with a $10 million grant, the largest sum directed from a single public entity toward the nonprofit for draft purposes. The funds come from the Department of Community and Economic Development’s (DCED) Marketing to Attract Marquis Events grant program, which supports large-scale events that benefit the state and requires a 50% match.
The funding is part of a broader effort by the governor’s office to promote the state during the country’s semiquincentennial, which will be marked by other major sporting events, including Philadelphia’s hosting of Major League Baseball’s 2026 All-Star Game and a share of the FIFA World Cup. The 2025-26 budget “ensures those epic events have the resources they need,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said during a budget address last February.
Allegheny County, for its part, committed $3 million from its reserves of hotel room rental tax revenue — which the county gets from placing a 7% tax on short-term accommodation, including hotel, motel and Airbnb stays — to VisitPittsburgh as part of a cooperation agreement that took effect last January. The agreement requires VisitPittsburgh to tack $2 million of its own funds to that sum. In 2024, 83% of VisitPittsburgh’s funding came from Allegheny County, which pays the agency from its hotel tax revenue.
And in 2024, the city’s Office of Management and Budget agreed to provide the nonprofit with up to $1 million over three years. The allocation requires VisitPittsburgh to also contribute $2 million, according to a contract between the city and nonprofit.
In addition to tangible monetary support, the city agreed to provide “in-kind” staffing resources for the event, which will impact departments such as Public Safety, Public Works and Parks and Recreation. TribLive reported Wednesday that the city is pursuing cooperation agreements with 18 other law enforcement agencies, which would send officers to help police the draft. Those regional and federal agencies would cover their own costs.
Generally, the public funds that flow through VisitPittsburgh support “essential services needed to host an event of this scale,” said a spokesperson for the Local Organizing Committee, an NFL Draft planning group composed of VisitPittsburgh staff and representatives of public and private entities. Those services include public safety, infrastructure enhancements and tourism promotion.
Generally, “VisitPittsburgh has discretion on how to spend the money, though broadly it was intended for marketing the region,” said Abigail Gardner, the director of communications for Allegheny County. The cooperation agreement also states that VisitPittsburgh can use the funds to pay its staff and contractors who help coordinate the event.
While the money flowing through VisitPittsburgh broadly covers operations for the draft, over the last few years, local government agencies have poured millions of dollars into initiatives that either directly or tangentially prepare Pittsburgh’s built environment for the event.
Shapiro, for instance, announced $600 million in Downtown investments in 2024. Though that wasn’t a direct contribution to the draft, some of the projects flowing out of that investment, such as upgrades to Point State Park, an overhaul of Market Square and the installation of Arts Landing in the Cultural District, are central landmarks around the draft campus.
Last November, PennDOT retroactively added roughly $430,000 to Pittsburgh’s 2023 Green Light Go grant, which helps municipalities pay for traffic signal upgrades. The department increased its allocation to upgrade traffic signals in areas affected by the draft, according to a City Council resolution related to the funding. The program requires recipients to match the state allocation by 20%, meaning the city must contribute an additional $86,000.
PennDOT also set aside $2 million to help with pre-draft “beautification efforts” including litter pickup, sweeping and graffiti removal, according to a spokesperson for the state.
And in addition to granting VisitPittsburgh $10 million, DCED spent $350,000 on VisitPA marketing efforts, according to a spokesperson for the governor’s office.
The Pennsylvania State Police are also coordinating with local, state and federal security partners to develop security plans, coordinate traffic management tactics, conduct risk assessments and participate in “interagency exercises.” The state could not provide an estimated cost of those efforts, citing security reasons, according to the state’s spokesperson.
A recent city Department of Public Safety internal transfer shows that at least $50,000 of the department’s budget is being spent on “Motorola equipment for use during the NFL Draft,” according to City Council minutes. The equipment ensures that various public safety departments, including Pittsburgh Police, the Pennsylvania State Police, Allegheny County Police and the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office, have compatible communications equipment for the event, said Molly Onufer, press secretary for the mayor’s office.
How to measure impact
VisitPittsburgh estimates that this year’s draft will attract 500,000 to 700,000 attendees and produce between $120 million and $213 million in economic impact. But what is economic impact, and how can the number of people be determined before the Draft has even taken place?
Economic impact is defined as a financial effect that something, typically something new, has on a situation. In anticipation of a major sporting event, such as the NFL Draft, host regions may contract university departments or private organizations to conduct an economic impact study.
“I think there’s a lot of inconvenience that can come from major sporting events,” said Thilo Kunkel, a professor at Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management. But an economic impact study is a way for host cities to tell local stakeholders: “‘Hey, you’re going through this, but overall, this is really worth it because it brings a large amount of money into our economy, which is going to be better for us, which we can use that money in order to make our community better,’” he said.
The most basic element of any economic impact study is determining how much new money entered the host economy due to the event, Kunkel said. That number helps determine the indirect and induced spending caused by the event. The best way to think about how these three types of spending interact, he said, would be to think about the chain reaction caused by someone purchasing a Coca-Cola at a sporting event.
Pop sales show how spending bubbles up
- A non-local attendee buys a $2 Coca-Cola at an event. That is called direct spending.
- The business that completed the transaction has to spend money on employing people for the event, which is considered indirect spending.
- The employee receives a higher salary due to the purchase, because it’s $2 that wouldn’t have been spent if not for the attendee traveling to the sports event and craving a Coke. With that higher salary, the employee might go out for dinner the next weekend instead of cooking at home. That’s induced spending.
- Another part of this chain reaction is leakage: The amount of direct spending not retained in the host region. “Well, the $2 spent in Pittsburgh at an event, 50 cents goes straight to Atlanta,” said Temple professor Thilo Kunkel in reference to the soda brand’s headquarters.
When scrutinizing economic impact studies, Kunkel said, people should look out for two things: how the researcher defines new money, as well as the attendee population.
The attendee population should exclude locals, he said, because they don’t contribute new money to the local economy. The attendee population should consider only unique visitors, too, rather than tallying the total number of people who show up over multiple days. Not accounting for these things could inflate the amount of new money coming into the region, and therefore inflate the total economic impact, he said.
VisitPittsburgh’s projection of total attendees makes sense, Kunkel said, but he added that a lot of those attendees will be from Pittsburgh or the county, and therefore would not contribute to any economic gain.
As for the nonprofit’s estimate of the event’s economic impact, which ranges between $120 and $213 million: “That seems right about in the ballpark. But it’s a big ballpark,” he said.
Who benefits?
With so many public resources and dollars now attached to the NFL Draft, residents such as Byrdsong remain wondering: How much economic impact will the NFL Draft have on Pittsburgh, and how will that impact translate into reinvestment in the city?
He said he’d generally like to see how the city could access tax revenue generated by the draft to invest in Black-owned small businesses, education and workforce development, while also noting that each neighborhood has its own needs.
“What is the social responsibility of a corporate Pittsburgh to reinvest back into the communities that have been supporting them over the years?” he said.
Alex Sodini, a research associate at the Allegheny Institute think tank, said the city will see benefits concentrated in specific types of businesses, such as hotels, bars and restaurants. But the broader economic impact remains unclear, he said.
“We’re talking about a three-day event,” he said. “We’re definitely gonna have a benefit, but it probably isn’t gonna be some sort of long-term catalyst for the entire region to grow.”
Sodini and Eric Montarti, the institute’s research director, analyzed the city and county’s tax revenue for April 2025. The county collects most of the taxes likely to spike during the draft, including taxes on hotel room rentals, alcohol and other sales. Kunkel also noted that most economic impact studies analyze the impact at the county level, and create a wider net if necessary. That’s largely due to local taxing structures, he said.
The city also collects taxes, such as the earned income, payroll and parking taxes, that are likely to generate extra income for the city during draft weekend. Tax revenue from these sources goes into the city’s general fund, which covers most of local government’s day-to-day activities, including public safety, public works, parks, planning and general administration.
Amy Weise Clements, the county’s acting controller, said that while county-level taxes are largely restricted to certain uses, the county “must be sure to make targeted investments with an influx of revenue that may not be repeated in the near future.”
At a press conference revealing transit plans for the draft, O’Connor also emphasized the uniqueness of this opportunity to “sell” the city to visitors.
“That’s why it’s all hands on deck to make sure that this event is not only about Pittsburgh, but it’s about our future, and what’s going to happen after the draft, and what we look like five years from now.”
Editor’s note: This story was amended after initial publication to remove an outdated characterization of the county’s payment to VisitPittsburgh.
Mia Hollie is the economic development and housing reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at mia@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.
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