Vibe Check: Tech at the 2026 NFL Draft
My experience with the NFL's tech, the Pittsburgh companies showcased, and what other volunteers say about the city's tech scene
When I caught wind that the NFL Draft was looking for paid volunteers to help folks find their way around Pittsburgh and the event, I applied within an hour of seeing the email. On top of the fact that it was a paid role, it came with free NFL swag, and I was excited to rep Pittsburgh to folks that might be coming in from out of town. Little did I know I would have so many conversations about Pittsburgh’s tech scene with fellow volunteers and bump into local tech celebrities, as well as get a peek inside the tech the NFL uses to run events. Speaking of…
NFL Event Tech in Pittsburgh
My experience with the NFL went from “This feels half-baked.” to “This is absolutely wild. How did they pull this off?” in a matter of days. The Friday before the draft, we had a volunteer training meeting on Microsoft Teams that went sideways pretty quickly when folks started joining the meeting. Apparently no one had turns off entry and exit announcements.
“DOM—has joined the call.”
“CINDI—has joined the call.”
The volunteers’ names, in the thickest yinzer accents possible, boomed over the NFL team as they attempted to present volunteer information. Honestly, it was hilarious. I had to go off cam I was laughing so hard. I did get the information I needed from the meeting eventually, but I was not impressed by the tech—that is, until I got on-site for my first day of volunteering.
One week later, on Day 2 of the Draft, everything was smooth as butter. The NFL OnePass app, which volunteers had downloaded to better help fans with their own installations of the app, had an extremely smooth onboarding flow which also resulted in a QR code that became your ticket to the event. Of course, there were still folks who complained about having to install an app, but I mean, come on. What is this 1947 or something?
After my shift, I made my way over to the Draft Theater, which felt like approaching a giant alien spacecraft that had somehow landed right where Ribfest normally takes place.
Under the roof was ticketed, but I was still able to get fairly close in the free area about an hour before Brett Michaels and Wiz Khalifa were scheduled to perform. The lighting and color choices were just incredible, and I don’t think any other city has architecture that would frame the theater quite so well as the Fort Pitt Bridge-style decor did here.
From WTAE’s reporting on the theater, the roof was made up of over 1 mile of trusses, while the screen was composed of more than 1,300 LED panels all networked together to produce a custom bridge-shaped display. Across the river, 24 laser projectors were firing 768,000 lumens of light across the 41,000 sq. ft. front of the Wyndham Hotel. All of this was in addition to a slew of smaller light installations and screens throughout the draft campus and across town, all networked and broadcasting the event together. So despite my initial skepticism, I’d say the production and IT staff nailed both the production tech needed to create the experience and the mobile app to handle the event’s massive number of volunteers and attendees.
Pittsburgh Tech at the Draft
In the midst of this massive event were a number of tech wins for Pittsburgh companies for folks who participated in the “Powering the Future of Sport: A Draft Week Showcase” event put on by CMU and the AI Strike Team at the Robotics Innovation Center in Hazelwood Green. I briefly covered some highlights from that in the latest Monthly Beat, but only secondhand since it was an invite-only event. Technical.ly’s coverage was excellent, though, so definitely recommend a read of their write-up if you’re interested in how that went. Only one of these companies made it onto the stage in the Draft Theater, though.
On my second day of volunteering, I was giving people directions outside the west side entrance to the Draft campus, and all of a sudden two guys with CMU hoodies approached me, one wearing a HEBI hat. It was Bob and Howie of HEBI Robotics! They were looking for the correct entrance to bring their robots through for their presentation. It was awesome to see their bots on stage! It did make me wonder though: maybe more local tech companies should have had a presence in the Draft campus, especially since visitors seemed to spend most of their time there.
Volunteer Voices on Pittsburgh Tech
Finally, I want to share some commentary from two volunteers on the Pittsburgh tech scene. It was refreshing to get some on-the-ground takes from folks outside the industry, and I found these two conversations particularly poignant.
On my first day of volunteering, I met a fellow volunteer Ashley as I helped people get photos in front of the big helmet pictured at the top of the post. Ashley is originally from Pittsburgh and came back to town to volunteer at the Draft and do PR for a nearby 5k. She said it was encouraging to see how much the tech scene has developed since she moved away, but she asked me an excellent question: “Are there any really big tech-themed conferences that happen in Pittsburgh?” I struggled to find an answer, other than “Well, we had PyCon for a couple of years I guess. And I think there’s a yearly B-Sides cybersecurity event at the casino?” Upon reflection, this seems like a gaping whole in the local ecosystem, but my hope is that the Draft really dials up interest in Pittsburgh enough that we land another big conference-style tech event.
On my second day of volunteering, I was paired up with Karen, an older yinzer from Harmar Township. Karen was so excited to be a part of the event, and spoke about present-day Pittsburgh with great pride in comparison with how it used to be. She, too, had a generally favorable view of local tech companies with one notable exception: AI data centers. She expressed serious concerns with how many data centers are being built and how there is no real path to employment opportunities for locals after construction. In addition, she is worried that all the spending on data centers in general feels very much like a bubble ready to pop when they don’t turn a profit. I empathized with her concern, as I too have been questioning the value proposition of these projects.
All this being said, the consensus among all the volunteers I worked with was that Draft was a net benefit to Pittsburgh, tech companies included. I’m likewise hopeful that, long term, Pittsburgh will experience more growth and flourishing because of the Draft. It was an absolute blast to be volunteering there, making people feel welcome as they discovered the city, and perhaps its tech scene, for the first time.
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