From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The 15 highest-rated television shows in the local market in 2008 were Steelers games, according to N.F.L. and Nielsen Media Research. The only reason there weren’t 16 games is because the September 14 game at Cleveland was not rated because of Hurricane Ike.
Once again, the Steelers led the league with the highest television ratings in their own market. The Steelers drew a 44.5/66 rating/share (percentage of households/percentage of household TV’s in use) in 2008, a 5 percent increase over 2007.
David Streitfeld‘s interesting article about Pittsburgh in The Times on Wednesday, meanwhile, about the city’s conversion from steel town to service town, failed to mention the Steelers once. This is nearly impossible when writing an article about Pittsburgh; this is like writing a term paper without using “the.” While I was personally disappointed (yeah, I’m a fan), I congratulate Streitfeld on his feat.
At the other extreme, here’s Holly Brubach in today’s Times with a great profile of Steelers defensive coordinator Dick Lebeau.
Many sports fans may be unfamiliar with Brubach’s byline; that’s because she’s better known as an arts-and-fashion queenpin, including stints at Prada and as Style editor for The Times. But she’s always written wonderfully about sports too; and now she’s moved back to her native Pittsburgh.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I’ve gone to a number of Steeler away games over the years (although not so often recently due to the arrival of my two children), and I have always been amazed at the number of Steeler fans who attend away games. I wonder how much of this is Pgh fans who road trip and how much of this is displaced Pittsburghers (or wannabe Pittsburghers?). There seems to be something to the latter: A number of cities have Steeler bars for people to watch the team on TV. What’s the economic effect in each case? For a Steeler fan like me, that would be a great research project…
Streitfeld also failed to mention the local government scene. Our (young) Mayor has had a series of mini scandals that have, so far, failed to rise to the level of Kwame Kilpatrick, but only just. But more important is that Pittsburgh is saddled with maybe two thirds of a billion dollars in under funded municipal pension liabilities as well as having maybe two thirds of a billion dollars in public debt. The City has been in “Act 47″ status (an economically distressed city) for the last five years, a category the state legislature invented to avoid having Pennsylvania cities declare bankruptcy. Yet we still have not addressed our pensions or debt, just our short term revenue shortfall. We had a five year economic plan created by state appointed overseers (which started in 2003) that included new taxing powers temporarily granted by the State, increased direct grants from the State (in the 40 million dollar a year range) and special legal status that suspended the rules for binding arbitration for public unions (like the fire and police unions) so they haven’t gotten much in the way of raises in the last five years. But despite the fact we had the five year plan and despite Mr. Streitfeld’s upbeat article, Pittsburgh has not found enough new sources of tax revenue and our city finances are due to go into the red within two or three years (seperate from the long term pension and debt picture). I think people eat, sleep and breathe Steelers in some part because they can’t believe Democrats have screwed up the City’s (and the County’s) finances so badly. Speaking of the County, don’t get me started on property taxes, with a State Supreme Court case on reassessments in process precipitated by our County, that will affect most every other county around the State to the tune of millions of dollars for each county. When’s kick-off?
@ kris #9: youre mayor’s name already means black steel so you can cut him some slack there