Pittsburgh’s hosting of the NFL Draft is history. By many accounts, it was a “success.” But not for all.
Let’s first deal with the NFL’s official attendance number – a “record” 805,000 people, an oddly convenient round number. Not 805,143. Not 805,006. Not 805,239. But 805,000 on the nose.
As we’ve pointed out before, the NFL counting methodology is suspect. And as the Post-Gazette has repeatedly noted:
“The NFL’s count of people is an aggregate, so if one person attended all three days, they would be counted three times.”
Nifty trick, eh?
Indeed, however, the NFL says Thursday’s opening-day attendance totaled about 320,000 — a record-setting single-day count. Should we be left to assume that attendees who may have entered, exited and then re-entered the event perimeter at any given day at any given time also were counted multiple times?
Now, by any standard, we must stipulate that the crowds each day were large. And we would be wholly remiss to not applaud the overall behavior of the attendees and also the work of law enforcement – local, state and federal – whose coordinated efforts played no small role in the success of the three-day extravaganza. Arrests were few and far between.
There also was no generalized traffic gridlock. It appears that a large majority of attendees took the organizers’ advice and used mass transit. A bit to the chagrin, we’re sure, of some parking operators who set high demand pricing with many forced to cut prices to reflect slackened demand.
But as more than a few observers predicted (far more astute than the cheerleading NFL and Chamber of Commerce-types), the NFL Draft did not drum up much business for vendors/businesses outside the official event “zone.”
Sadly, promoters, predicting massive crowds would lead to unimagined riches to eateries and other establishments citywide (think not only those parking facilities but Downtown hotels, too) are eating crow served cold. In reality, many establishments saw marked decreases in businesses. The concept of “host it and they will come” turned into an expensively cruel joke.
It’s pretty clear that the NFL-sanctioned vendors siphoned business from those outside the event perimeter who were urged to staff-up and stock-up. It should be a lesson learned for everybody: People generally go to events to go to events. (Imagine that.)
Still to come will be the VisitPittsburgh-sanctioned economic impact study. Past being prologue, such studies tend to inflate the gains and downplay or dismiss the aforementioned losses.
Here’s to an honest assessment, warts and all, to better serve, and educate, all those involved in future events.
But, as a Thursday Tribune-Review headline notes:
“Pittsburgh likely spent more than it will receive for 2026 NFL Draft.”
From the email inbox, a long-regular reader and correspondent offered this on the Allegheny Institute’s dissection last week of the peril’s of government mandating at $15 hourly minimum wage:
“[T]he first reason for opposing a minimum wage hike, or a minimum wage at all, should be to question authority, a phrase used by hippies in the 1960s which I did not understand at the time.
“No one has the moral authority to dictate to someone how much to pay someone else for doing a job,” he wrote.
“In addition, anyone supporting such things should go to Switzerland to see the consequences of high wages (without a national minimum wage) –high prices.”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
