Pittsburgh is a triple crown when it comes to professional sports, having the Steelers in the NFL, the Pirates in the MLB and the Penguins in the NHL. But now, Yinzers may be welcoming a new team to the area in the NBA.
Pittsburgh’s Sports and Exhibition Authority is giving a consulting firm $90,000 to conduct research, polls and various studies to see if there is a high enough demand for an NBA or WNBA team.
For the past couple of years, the NBA has been pushing to expand the league from 30 teams to 32 teams. With the WNBA gaining popularity, they plan to follow suit and will look to add more teams in 2025. Some other cities where the NBA is considering hosting a franchise are Seattle, former home of the SuperSonics, Vancouver, formerly hosts of the original Grizzlies, Las Vegas, Montreal and Baltimore. For the WNBA, they are considering Denver, Toronto, Philadelphia and Charlotte as possibilities.
The Steel City has had its history with professional basketball. Originally called the Pipers then renamed the Condors, Pittsburgh’s team was the first-ever American Basketball Association champions in 1968, beating the New Orleans Buccaneers in a seven-games series. However, the team would be discontinued in 1972 during the ABA-NBA merger, leaving a yet-to-be-filled basketball void in the area.
Along with a history of having a pro team, I think that Pittsburgh has a decent chance at becoming the home for a new NBA team for two reasons: conference balance and the sports fandom in the city.
An NBA team seems more likely because three of the top four cities the WNBA is looking at are on the eastern side of the country which would bring more competition. With Philadelphia being much larger than Pittsburgh and already having an NBA team to match an WNBA counterpart, the city of Brotherly Love has a better chance for the women.
With Settle, Vegas and Vancouver all in the West, this narrows down the competition on the NBA side, allowing Pittsburgh to potentially act as a balance.
Baltimore is in the same boat as they had the Baltimore Bullets from 1944 to 1954 before being relocated to Washington D.C. The Toronto Raptors are the only team in Canada after the Grizzlies moved from Vancouver to Memphis in 2001. Out of these three cities that have had a pro team in the past, Pittsburgh was the only one to have success with the Condors winning in 1968.
With the population being just over 300,000 and adding another 1.5 million to the metro area, there are enough people in the city to support a team. Already having three pro teams and a notable college in the University of Pittsburgh Panthers, the city has a big love for sports. With enough people and an area that loves sports, it definitely can build a case for putting an NBA team there.
Of course, we won’t truly know if the city has a chance until these studies come back and results are calculated. With Pittsburgh being a big sports city and having a solid population to support those teams, professional basketball may find its way back into the Steel City one day.
