The Pittsburgh Steelers‘ stadium has been known as Heinz Field since its opening in 2001, but that’s about to change. The new name will be Acrisure Stadium. As Andrew Fillipponi of Pittsburgh radio station 93.7 The Fan relayed Sunday night and Monday, locally-based condiment maker Heinz (part of KraftHeinz since 2013) has opted not to extend their sponsorship deal, paving the way for Michigan-based insurance brokerage firm Acrisure to come in:
This prompted lots of Twitter discussion, including references to the time Heinz Field was destroyed on-screen by Bane in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises:
It looks like this will include an exit for the famed ketchup bottles on the scoreboard (seen at top), which pour over the screen to fill up the “red zone” when the Steelers get there:
The discussion here also saw mentions of how few stadium names the Steelers have played at, and how many people seem set to keep calling it Heinz Field anyway:
Always gonna be Heinz Field yinz #heinzfield pic.twitter.com/TWY4oCd7x0
— Trish Harrison
(@trish_harrison) July 11, 2022
We’ll see how the adoption of “Acrisure Stadium” goes (or doesn’t go) over time. The name change will certainly lead to plenty of shifts in official releases, press conferences, and media stories, but there are lots of arenas out there that get regularly referenced by their former name amongst fans despite an official corporate sponsorship change. A couple that come to mind include Toronto’s Rogers Centre, still known by its 1989-2005 name of SkyDome to many, and Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, still known by its 1999-2021 name of Staples Center to many. It remains to be seen if Heinz Field will join that group.
[Andrew Fillipponi on Twitter; top image from a Steelers.com video]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.