It’s not my intent for the next sentence to be a demeaning statement toward other sports or their fans, so I’ll proceed. The U.S. football fan is cut from a different cloth, truly a rare breed as you may have surmised in your viewing of events. The National Football League comprises 32 teams, and each one touts its own die-hard fan base.
At a home contest, the faithful in attendance are often referred to as the 12th man, as they offer a huge advantage when the enemy — aka, the opposing team — comes to town. They are vocal, loud, rowdy – and sometimes, unfortunately, it is carried to extremes with vulgar obscene antics, which hopefully remain few and far between.
Many loyalists not only fill the stadium seats at the home venue, but take to the air, land and sea to become “road warriors,” sometimes traveling far and wide to follow their team. Well, maybe not the sea, but you get the point. Their intent is to fill as many of the venue’s seats, replicating the appearance of a home game to give the advantage to the guys on the field.
Here are my top five team fans that hit the open road with the goal of becoming that 12th man: the Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, Green Bay Packers and your Pittsburgh Steelers.
Now let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this column. People have always been tempted by the lure of big money, in essence a substantial amount of it with little or no effort. After all, this country was built on the free enterprise system. I totally get it, folks, as I’m all about making money in the easiest way possible.
Those who don’t have enough of it want it. Those who have it, always want more of it – and it’s been that way forever.
I don’t want this to sound like I’m a big proponent of price-gouging; however, we have followed the law of supply and demand since this nation was founded. Simply put, as you well know, any product where the demand is higher than the supply, the holder of said product basically names the selling price. If you can afford it or want it badly enough, you pay — plain and simple. This is especially true in the world of sports and event tickets.
Normally if you wait until right at kickoff or shortly after, ticket agencies as well as the sellers roaming the streets will drop the prices to move unsold tickets. However the recent Sunday Night Football matchup at Acrisure Stadium between the Steelers and Green Bay Packers was not a normal night or normal game, and ticket sellers’ prices stood firm. They had already made a ton of cash on previous sales so there was no reason to start dumping tickets.
The game was touted as the “Revenge Game” as the man who captained the Packers ship for 18 glorious seasons — quarterback Aaron Rodgers – was now calling signals in a black & gold uniform.
At kickoff and beyond, a single seat in the stadium’s 500 level would continue to see a premium price of $185, or double the face value cost. The closer the ticket was to the field, the price stayed extremely expensive; in some instances those seats were going for triple the face value. In the event you were looking for a premium club seat or seat in the Champions section, even in the late hour, you were paying $500 to $800, respectively, for a single ticket.
By now you know the outcome as the final score is an afterthought. You can forget all the statistics, on-field play of touchdowns, fumbles, interceptions and sideline antics, as it’s all history. A game that was labeled one way quickly shifted from its original intent, and the focus moved instead to the people in the stands.
In researching for this submission, I had to go back to Sept. 10, 2023, pinning that as the last notable occurrence, prior to Oct. 26, 2025. I’m referring to the last time that “Steeler Nation” was outmanned, outcheered and outnumbered at home. The home-field advantage went straight down the drain just like it did in September two years ago when San Francisco visited for the Steelers home opener with the same results, a Steeler loss during a terrible on-field performance.
The 49er faithful outnumbered the hometown crowd by a 40% to 60% margin in the seats when Steeler ticket holders dumped their tickets for big cash. Seemed as it was much of the same for the Sunday night contest against the Packers.
Packer fans, the same as the 49er fans from two years ago, were polite, friendly and acted with respect as they roamed the establishments of the North Shore and downtown areas clad in Green Bay colors. They were not shy about dropping a substantial amount of cash throughout the region, in the process bolstering the local economy.
If it sounds like I’m whining, crying or carrying around a plate of sour grapes over losing a football game, you are sadly mistaken. I’m a member of the working media, as such I bear no allegiance to any team I cover, remaining impartial as always.
My comments in this column are miniscule compared to the attention the game received with commentary on a national level from reputable sports talk shows. I wasn’t the only person to notice it, trust me.
For example, a guest on “The Pat McAfee Show,” former NFL head coach and ex-Steelers offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, chimed in with his opinion. Arians held nothing back during his interview last Tuesday, strongly criticizing the Steelers fan base for allowing the green and gold faithful to run amok and dominate the atmosphere at Acrisure Stadium.
He was not wrong, as Steelers fans lit up social media platforms in abundance, expressing frustration and anger with the chant of “Go Pack Go,” which was loud and heard often. It continued all of the second half as the Packers’ on-field play gave their fans no reason to quit or sit down. That chant echoed throughout the North Shore like the winter winds blowing in off the confluence of the city’s three rivers.
In referencing the Packer fans’ antics in the stands Arians said, “That was unheard of. That was a very bad sign for me.” Well, coach, it wasn’t very pretty or pleasant from the sidelines either, certainly not the normal home game crowd.
Arians concluded his tirade of verbally bashing the Steelers Nation by saying, “There was one thing that upset me the most watching that game. I have never seen the Steelers have to use a silent count at home. For the Steelers fans, that is embarrassing.”
Listen, I understand we all like money and I have no clue what any ticket holder for the Packers game is dealing with, or their financial needs. I’m not here to judge anyone or their specific reasons for selling such a highly coveted ticket.
There could be a vast array of reasons for the massive selling of tickets for the Green Bay contest. Early morning work schedule, late night for the school student, road construction, difficulty to navigate to and secure a parking spot? I suppose we will never get the true answer.
You can formulate your own opinion as to how, what and why. Myself, I’m sticking with the obvious: the lure of big money was just too hard to resist.
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