Acrisure Stadium
Acrisure Stadium, formerly known as Heinz Field, is a stadium located in the North Shore neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. It primarily serves as the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League and the Pittsburgh Panthers of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The stadium opened in 2001 as Heinz Field, following the controlled implosion of the teams' previous home, Three Rivers Stadium. In 2021, the owners of the Heinz name, now owned by Kraft Heinz, declined to renew the stadium's naming rights. The City of Pittsburgh approved Acrisure's bid to purchase the rights in 2022.
Funded in conjunction with PNC Park and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the $281 million stadium stands along the Ohio River, on the North Side of Pittsburgh in the North Shore neighborhood. The stadium was designed with the city's history of steel production in mind, which led to the inclusion of 12,000 tons of steel into construction. Ground for the stadium was broken in June 1999, and the first football game was hosted in September 2001. The stadium's natural-grass surface has been criticized throughout its history, but Steelers owners have kept the grass after lobbying from players and coaches. The 68,400-seat stadium has sold out for most Steelers home games, a streak that dates to 1972. A collection of Steelers and Panthers memorabilia is in the Great Hall.
The stadium has hosted two outdoor hockey games: the 2011 NHL Winter Classic between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals, and the 2017 NHL Stadium Series game between the Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. The venue has also hosted numerous concerts; on June 17, 2023, Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour performance was attended by 73,117 people, the highest-ticketed event in Pittsburgh history.
History
Planning and funding
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Pirates shared Three Rivers Stadium from 1970 to 2000. After discussions over the Pirates building a full-time baseball park, a proposal was made to renovate Three Rivers Stadium into a full-time football facility. Although the Steelers' owners disliked the idea, the proposal was used as a "fallback position" that would be used if discussions for a new stadium failed. The Steelers' owners said failing to build a new stadium would hurt the franchise's chances of signing players who might sign with other teams, such as the other three teams in the AFC North, who had all recently built new football-only stadiums. In June 2001, the H. J. Heinz Company purchased the naming rights to the stadium. Per the deal, Heinz would pay the Steelers a total of $57 million through 2021, the "57" being an intentional reference to Heinz 57. Despite Heinz later announcing its acquisition of Kraft Foods Group to form Kraft Heinz Company in 2015, the stadium's name was retained.Originally, a sales tax increase was proposed to fund three projects: Heinz Field, PNC Park, and an expansion of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. After the rejection of this proposal in a 1997 referendum known as the "Regional Renaissance Initiative", the city developed the alternate funding proposal Plan B. Similarly controversial, the proposal was labeled Scam B by opponents. The Steelers' pledge toward the new stadium was criticized for being too little, even after it was raised from $50 million to $76.5 million. Other local government members criticized the $281 million of public money allocated for Plan B. One member of the Allegheny Regional Asset District board called the use of tax dollars "corporate welfare". The plan, totaling $809 million, was approved by the Allegheny Regional Asset District board on July 9, 1998, with $233 million allotted for Heinz Field. Shortly after Plan B was approved, the Steelers made a deal with Pittsburgh city officials to stay in the city until at least 2031. The total cost of Heinz Field was $281 million.
Design and construction
designed the stadium. HOK Sport's project manager for the project, Melinda Lehman, said that the Rooney family asked for the stadium's design to "acknowledge the history of Pittsburgh and also bring in an element of looking forward, this is where Pittsburgh is going." In order to accomplish this, HOK Sport used steel structurally and externally. The stone used in Acrisure Stadium's design is artificial, in order to decrease cost. Of the glass used in the stadium's design, Lehman said, "The glass is a more modern building element, which ties into a lot of the buildings in Pittsburgh and gives great views of the surrounding areas." The Steelers and Panthers have their own locker rooms, which differ in size based on the number of players each team is permitted to dress for each game. The visitor facilities are modeled after the home locker rooms' design. As with its predecessor, Acrisure Stadium's culinary service provider is Aramark; over 400 eateries are located throughout the stadium. A bronze statue of Steelers founder Art Rooney, similar to those located outside PNC Park, was moved from its previous position outside Three Rivers Stadium. In addition, a statue of a Pitt Panther over a paved depiction of Pitt's Cathedral of Learning was placed outside Gate A. Upon opening in 2001, Heinz Field's Sony JumboTron was the largest scoreboard in the NFL. In 2007, ESPN named the "tipping" of the oversized Heinz ketchup bottles atop the scoreboard one of the top ten touchdown celebrations in the NFL.Ground was broken for Heinz Field on June 18, 1999, at a ceremony co-hosted by the Steelers and the University of Pittsburgh. The stadium was constructed by Hunt Construction Group and . The two companies directed 1,400 workers over two years, in which there were no construction accidents or lawsuits. The stadium is inspected yearly, along with PNC Park, by Chronicle Consulting, LLC, for structural defects and maintenance.
Unusual for a stadium built in the 21st century, the stadium originally had trough-style urinals in the men's restroom, leading to a lack of privacy during bathroom breaks. In 2023, the trough urinals were replaced with more conventional individual urinals with privacy dividers.
Opening
The first event held at Heinz Field was a concert hosted by 'N Sync on August 18, 2001. Coincidentally, they were also the last band to perform at the Steelers' previous home, Three Rivers Stadium. Before the Steelers' regular season, the team played a pre-season game against the Detroit Lions on August 25, 2001. Pittsburgh won the stadium's unofficial opening game 20–7, before 57,829 spectators. The first official football game played in the stadium was between the Pittsburgh Panthers and East Tennessee State, on September 1. The Panthers won the game 31–0, with quarterback David Priestley scoring the first touchdown on an 85-yard run. The Steelers were scheduled to open the regular season play at Heinz Field on September 16 against the Cleveland Browns; however, due to the September 11 attacks, all NFL games of the week were postponed, thus moving the stadium's premiere to October 7, against the Cincinnati Bengals. Prior to the game, a speech from US President George W. Bush, ordering attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, was shown live on the stadium's JumboTron. The speech was met with much applause and support from the spectators in attendance. Pittsburgh defeated the Bengals, 16–7. Steelers kicker Kris Brown scored the first NFL points in the stadium on a 26-yard field goal, and quarterback Kordell Stewart scored the first touchdown on an eight-yard run.That same year, two light-emitting diode video displays from Daktronics were installed at the field. The larger, HD video display measures approximately high by nearly wide.
In 2007, writer Bill Evans named Heinz Field the second best stadium in the NFL, behind Lambeau Field, in an article for ESPN.com. Although both stadiums received a score of 54 out of 70, Sports Illustrated named Heinz Field the second best stadium in the NFL, also behind Lambeau Field.
Future
While the Steelers continue to make capital improvements to Acrisure Stadium as well as expand seating, some fans of the Pitt Panthers football team have called for the university to build an on-campus stadium. However, the university has never included such plans in any long-term facilities or strategic planning. While there has been talk of extending the Pittsburgh Light Rail to Oakland, significant costs were cited during construction of the North Shore Connector, which terminates at Acrisure Stadium. While the possibility of moving games back on campus with a purpose-built stadium has not been entirely dismissed by the university administration, it has also not been endorsed or featured in any strategic planning.In January 2021, just as the Heinz naming rights deal was set to expire, it was announced that Kraft-Heinz decided to renew the naming rights for just one more year, ensuring the name would remain through at least the end of 2021. As the naming rights were allowed to expire in 2022, the future name of the stadium was uncertain. However, Steelers president Art Rooney II has said he was "optimistic" about agreeing to another extension with Kraft-Heinz.
However, on July 10, 2022, it was reported that Heinz would not sign a new deal with the Steelers, ending their 21-year business arrangement. After unsuccessfully trying to find another local company to purchase the naming rights, the naming rights were bought by Michigan-based insurance company Acrisure in a deal initially reported on July 11, 2022; Steelers minority owner Thomas Tull also has an ownership stake in Acrisure. The decision to rename the stadium has received overwhelmingly fierce opposition by Steelers fans.
However, Kraft-Heinz did not remain outside of Steelers-named sponsorship for much longer after giving up naming rights to the stadium itself; the company renegotiated with the Steelers to instead be the naming sponsor for Gate C, the closest gate to the Allegheny Light Rail station. Kraft Heinz later repurposed the Heinz Field name for the new football stadium for Aliquippa Junior/Senior High School in suburban Aliquippa, Pennsylvania as part of a $1.3 million endowment to the Aliquippa School District for new academic and athletic centers.