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The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC. In contrast with their status as perennial also-rans in the pre-merger NFL, where they were the oldest team to never win a league championship, the Steelers of the post-merger (modern) era are one of the most successful NFL franchises. Pittsburgh has won more Super Bowl titles (6), and hosted more (11) conference championship games than any other NFL team. The Steelers share the record for most AFC championships with the New England Patriots (8), and the record for most conference championship games played in with the San Francisco 49ers (15). The Steelers share the record for most Super Bowl appearances with the Patriots and Dallas Cowboys (8). The Steelers lost their most recent championship appearance, Super Bowl XLV, on February 6, 2011. The Steelers were founded as the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 8, 1933, by Art Rooney, taking its original name from the baseball team of the same name, as was common practice for NFL teams at the time.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Steelers history )〕 To distinguish them from the baseball team, local media took to calling the football team the Rooneymen, an unofficial nickname which persisted for decades after the team adopted its current nickname. The ownership of the Steelers has remained within the Rooney family since its founding. The current owner is Art's son, Dan Rooney, who has given much control of the franchise to his son Art Rooney II. Long one of the NFL's flagship teams,〔(What happened to the flagship 49ers? )〕 the Steelers enjoy a large, widespread fanbase nicknamed Steeler Nation. The Steelers currently play their home games at Heinz Field on Pittsburgh's North Side in the North Shore neighborhood, which also hosts the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. Built in 2001, the stadium replaced Three Rivers Stadium which hosted the Steelers for 31 seasons. Prior to Three Rivers, the Steelers had played their games in Pitt Stadium and Forbes Field. ==Franchise history== The Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL first took to the field as the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 20, 1933, losing 23–2 to the New York Giants.〔(Team – Pro Football Hall of Fame )〕 Through the 1930s, the Pirates never finished higher than second place in their division, or with a record better than .500 ().〔(PDF File: NFL Past Standings )〕 Pittsburgh did make history in by signing Byron White, a future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to what was at the time the biggest contract in NFL history,〔(Official site of the Pittsburgh Steelers – Team History )〕 but he played only one year with the Pirates before signing with the Detroit Lions.〔(:The U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals: )〕 Prior to the 1940 season, the Pirates renamed themselves the Steelers. During World War II, the Steelers experienced player shortages. They twice merged with other NFL franchises to field a team. During the 1943 season, they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles forming the "Phil-Pitt Eagles" and were known as the "Steagles". This team went 5–4–1. In 1944, they merged with the Chicago Cardinals and were known as Card-Pitt (or, mockingly, as the "Carpets").〔 This team finished 0–10, marking the only winless team in franchise history.〔(World War II Steagles to be honored at tonight's game – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review )〕 The Steelers made the playoffs for the first time in , tying for first place in the division at 8–4 with the Philadelphia Eagles. This forced a tie-breaking playoff game at Forbes Field, which the Steelers lost 21–0.〔(Pittsburgh Steelers Team Encyclopedia – Pro-Football-Reference.com )〕 That would be Pittsburgh's only playoff game for the next 25 years; they did qualify for a "Playoff Bowl" in 1962 as the second-best team in their conference, but this was not considered an official playoff.〔(The Playoff Bowl (Bert Bell Benefit Bowl) )〕 In , the year they moved into Three Rivers Stadium and the year of the AFL-NFL merger, the Pittsburgh Steelers were one of three old-guard NFL teams to switch to the newly formed American Football Conference (the others being the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts), in order to equalize the number of teams in the two conferences of the newly merged league. The Steelers also received a $3 million ($ million today) relocation fee, which was a windfall for them; for years they rarely had enough to build a true contending team. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pittsburgh Steelers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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