The Steelers’ home stadium is getting another round of work, and this time the focus is on the seats.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Adam Babetski, the Pittsburgh Sports and Exhibition Authority has approved funding for about 18,000 new seats at Acrisure Stadium as the team continues upgrades ahead of the 2026 season. Babetski reported that Steelers affiliate PSSI Stadium LLC asked last year for replacements for 58,719 of the stadium’s 68,400 seats.
“Nearly all of the seats were original to the stadium, which opened in 2001. The SEA’s facility condition assessment firm found that many of the seats were detaching from the stadium’s concrete, rusting or deteriorating in some other fashion.”
The latest approved batch covers seats in the lower level on the east end of the stadium and carries a price tag of $5.8 million. Babetski also noted that the board is looking at the project in phases. Last October, 22,236 seats in the east and west sections of the upper bowl were approved for about $12.4 million.
The new seats won’t all look the same. Eighty-five percent will be yellow, while the other 15 percent will be gray.
Before the new seating goes in, the stadium’s concrete will also be repaired. Lucas Kistler, the Sports and Exhibition Authority director of facility services, said the Steelers expect the seat replacements to be finished with a third and final phase in 2027.
The seating project comes on the heels of another major change at Acrisure Stadium: a new playing surface. Precision Turf recently said it completed installation of a field made of Tahoma 31 Bluegrass.
That’s a switch from the Kentucky bluegrass Pittsburgh had been using, and the field became a major issue during the 2025 season. The problems came into sharp focus when Miles Killebrew suffered a season-ending ACL injury against the Cleveland Browns in Week 6.
Cam Heyward, Aaron Rodgers and others spoke out about the surface, and Mike Tomlin addressed it directly.
“I thought it was poor yesterday,” Tomlin said. “I’m not concerned going forward. It’s my understanding that that turf is going to be swapped out, but I certainly acknowledge it was a concern yesterday.”
The old surface received the worst grade in the NFLPA’s 2026 report cards, so the Steelers are clearly trying to clean up more than one problem at their home stadium.
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