subject: Pittsburgh Steelers Tickets : The Steelers Gained A Large Fan Base Nationally Based On Its Success [print this page] The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). Founded in 1933, the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC.
Pittsburgh has won more Super Bowl titles (six), won more AFC Championship Games (seven) and hosted more conference championship games (ten) than any other AFC or NFC team. They have played in more AFC conference championship games than any other team and are tied with the Dallas Cowboys with 14 championship game appearances in either the NFC or AFC contests. The Steelers won their most recent championship, Super Bowl XLIII, on February 1, 2009.
The fifth-oldest franchise in the NFL, the Steelers were founded as the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 8, 1933, by Art Rooney, taking its original name from the National League baseball team of the same name, as was common practice for NFL teams to do at the time.The ownership of the Steelers has remained within the Rooney family since its founding. The current owner is Art's son, Dan Rooney, who has given much control of the franchise to his son Art Rooney II.
The team enjoys a large, widespread fanbase nicknamed the Steeler Nation, and currently play their home games at Heinz Field on Pittsburgh's North Side in the North Shore neighborhood, which also hosts the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. Built in 2001, the stadium replaced Three Rivers Stadium which hosted the Steelers for 31 seasons. Prior to Three Rivers, the Steelers had played their games in Pitt Stadium and Forbes Field.
Through the end of the 2009 season, the Steelers have an all-time record of 565/529/21, including playoffs. In recent seasons the Steelers have generally performed well, qualifying for the playoffs six times in the past ten seasons and winning the Super Bowl twice since 2005.
In the NFL's "modern era" (since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970) the Steelers have posted the best record in the league. The franchise has won the most total games, won the most divisional titles, earned the best winning percentage (including every expansion team), earned the most All-Pro nominations, and have accumulated the most Super Bowl wins (six) since the modern game started in 1970. It is 2nd overall in playoff wins and tied with the Miami Dolphins for most regular-season wins.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have three primary rivals, all within their division: (Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, and Cincinnati Bengals). They also have rivalries with other teams that arose from post-season battles in the past, most notably the New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders, Tennessee Titans and Dallas Cowboys. They also have an intrastate rivalry with the Philadelphia Eagles, but under the current scheduling the teams play each other only once every four years.
The Steelers have a tradition of having a large fanbase, which has spread from Pittsburgh. In August 2008, ESPN.com ranked the Steelers' fans as the best in the NFL, citing their "unbelievable" sellout streak of 299 consecutive games.
The team gained a large fan base nationally based on its success in the 1970s, but many consider the collapse of the city's steel industry at the end of the '70s dynasty into the 1980s to be a large catalyst for the size of the fan base in other cities. The Steelers have sold out every home game since the 1972 season.
The Terrible Towel, a staple of Steelers fandom, has been described by the Associated Press as "arguably the best-known fan symbol of any major pro sports team". Invented by broadcaster Myron Cope in 1975 , the towel's rights have since been given to the Allegheny Valley School in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, which cares for over 900 people with mental retardation and physical disabilities, including Cope's autistic son.Since 1996, proceeds from the Terrible Towel have helped raise more than $2.5 million for the school.
The Steelers enjoy several endearing nicknames most notably "The Black and Gold" and the Pittsburghese dialect "Stillers" or "Stihllers". The founder Art Rooney was almost always referred to by the nickname "The Chief" and Three Rivers Stadium as the "Blast Furnace" during the championship years of the 1970s.
