The Steelers have had a following inWestern Pennsylvania since 1933. That year,Pennsylvania relaxed itsblue laws allowing sporting events in the commonwealth on Sundays, paving the way for the Steelers and thePhiladelphia Eagles to begin play for the1933 NFL season. Previously, the state had teams inPottsville andFrankford, but both had already folded, due to both theGreat Depression and their inability to play on Sunday, when most NFL games took place.
Much like the league itself in the early years, the Steelers had to compete with baseball andcollege football teams in the city, making the team third in the hierarchy to thePittsburgh Pirates and thePitt Panthers. Despite the team's early struggles, it had a small but loyal fan base in the city due to the popularity ofAmerican football at all levels, dating back to the 1800s, when Pittsburgh hosted the first wholly professional football game in 1895.
By the 1950s, the Steelers had gained some popularity in the city and were on par with Pitt, but they were still a distant second behind the Pirates in the city.
The team's four Super Bowl victories in the 1970s coincided with arecession that struck the United States, and the city in particular, that would lead to the closure of several steel mills in the early 1980s. The team's success was credited with giving people in the city hope and leading to the increased fan base. Due to economic uncertainty in the area, many Steelers fans relocated to other areas but retained their identification with the Steelers as a reflection of their former hometown's steel industrial base.
During the lead up toSuper Bowl XIII between the Steelers and theDallas Cowboys, Phil Musick contrasted the Dallas and Pittsburgh fans by saying that "Dallas is superfanWhistling Ray and a hat that sprays the unsuspecting with water; Pittsburgh is a guy in agorilla suit who'll stove five of your ribs if you laugh at him."[2]
Jack Lambert said of Steeler Nation during his Hall of Fame induction speech: "How lucky I was to have played for the Pittsburgh Steelers fans. A proud, hard-working people, who loves their football, and their players."[3]
Since the 1970s, the Steelers have enjoyed a large fan base and have eclipsed thePittsburgh Pirates as the most popular sports team in Pittsburgh. While the team's success gained it a large fan base nationally, many consider the collapse of the city's steel industry to have been a cause for the strong fan base in other cities, demonstrated when teams whose home turnout would otherwise require a localblackout on television end up selling out when hosting the Steelers. An instance of the team's large fan base was atSuper Bowl XL, where an ESPN.com columnist suggested that Steelers fans outnumberedSeattle Seahawks fans more than 25–1[16] though that may have to do with the geographical closeness ofFord Field to Pittsburgh.
In November 2007, a study by Turnkey Sports found that the Steelers brand was the strongest in its local market of any team in theNHL,NBA,MLB orNFL.[17][18]
Many regional communities not officially associated with the "Pittsburgh" market have overwhelming numbers of Steeler fans who regularly flood local stations in bothHarrisburg[19][20][21][22] andErie with requests to show the technically "out of market" Steeler games.[23]
In November 2007,NFL Films president and co-founderSteve Sabol speaking at the team's 75th anniversary gala at theDavid L. Lawrence Convention Center stated: "The Steelers don't need a mascot. Their fans are their mascot...There were Gerela's Gorillas, Franco's Italian Army, Lambert's Lunatics, people dressed up like a bumble bee. You don't need a mascot when you have fans like that. When we'd go to Pittsburgh to do the game for NFL Films we never brought enough cameras."[24]
Human resources recruiters from thenatural gas industry, particularly those in theMarcellus Shale where Pittsburgh is located, began targeting Steeler bars nationwide for possible employees.[25]
Attempts at quantifying the loyalty of Steeler Nation relative to other NFL fan bases have shown mixed results.
A 2006 study by theAmerican City Business Journals placed the team's fans 21st out of 32 teams in the league,[26] behind all three of its division rivals in theAFC North. The study found that although the team had been selling out games for years, some fans were not actually attending the games, and Pittsburgh's weekly turnout percentage for home games was 16th in the league.[27] That ranking was down seven slots from the publication's survey conducted in 1997, which ranked Steelers Nation 14th out of 30 teams, partly due to fans leaving nearly 10% of the seats in the stadium empty.[28]
On the other hand, a 2008 study fromForbes.com ranked Steelers fans 8th overall, citing among other things a long season-ticket waiting list.[29] A 2008 article for ESPN.com ranked Steelers fans as the best in the NFL, citing their "unbelievable" sellout streak of 299 consecutive games.[30][31]
Anti–Steeler Nation sentiment has grown strong enough that in some cases,front offices for other teams have taken steps to keep Pittsburgh fans out of games in their cities.[32] Instead of being permitted to buy tickets to aChargers–Steelers game in San Diego, for instance, they were required to pay for tickets to two other games, as well.[33] In other cases, teams refused to sell tickets to fans calling from Pittsburgh's 412area code, and they encouraged fans who were selling their own tickets to do the same.[32] Steelers PresidentArt Rooney II complained to the NFL about the situation, but his grievance was not acted upon.[32]
^"Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. RetrievedOctober 9, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Carlisle, Anthony Todd (January 27, 1997). "Steelers fans aren't all that super, according to study".Pittsburgh Business Times. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. p. 5.
^Bendel, Joe (October 6, 2005)."Steelers are hot ticket in town".Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. p. D3. Archived fromthe original on January 25, 2013. RetrievedFebruary 19, 2009.
^"Archived copy". Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. RetrievedMarch 31, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
