PITTSBURGH —Despite being worth several billion dollars, and competing in the world’s most lucrative sports league, the Pittsburgh Steelers are very much still a family business.
While the day-to-day of the operation is very different than a mom-and-pop restaurant or a corner store, the way the Rooney family has run things over the years has been similar to the way many small businesses pass things down from generation to generation.
Founded by Art Rooney Sr. in 1933, the Steelers have remained in his family for 93 years, with leadership passing from Art, to his son Dan Rooney and to his grandson Art Rooney II , the team’s current president and primary owner.
Each generation has taken the torch from the last in a process that has been gradual and also tailored to the skillset of the next Rooney to come.
Dan Rooney got his start as the team’s director of personnel at the age of 28, moving up to general manager in 1969 at 37 years old and team president in 1975. Art Rooney II was a ball boy in the 70s, and started his professional career with the team as general counsel. In 2003, he was named team president at age 51.
The next Rooney is also named Dan. Art’s oldest son, the Daniel Martin Rooney, has been the team’s vice president of business development and strategy since before the 2025 season.
A quarterback at Shady Side Academy and Dartmouth, the latest Dan Rooney got his start with the Steelers working in both coaching and personnel, but after a stint working at the league office, turned to the business side of things.
In his current role, Dan Rooney has taken the reins for several big-picture projects for the team. He was the point man in organizing the Steelers’ trip to Ireland in 2025, in helping to develop U.S. Community Field , which opened at Hazelwood Green on Monday, and in organizing the team’s efforts surrounding the 2026 NFL Draft coming to Pittsburgh.
Those projects have been extremely well regarded. The Steelers players, the NFL and the Irish community had phenomenal experiences in Dublin last season, to the point that Irish football fans are already itching for a return.
“I thought it was an absolute triumph of a weekend,” Michael McQuaid of Pro Football Ireland told Steelers Now in February . “The league loved it. Seeing Coach [Mike] Tomlin, Aaron Rodgers and others how much they talked about it afterward, it was awesome, and please God, they’ll be back sooner than later.”
In Hazelwood, Dan Rooney helped wrangle a vast coalition of non-profits, corporate entities and community groups into a team that was able to come together on a complicated project.
“He’s done an amazing job pulling this all together,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said at the opening of the field on Wednesday. “Art and I have been really proud, just looking at him and the way he’s been able to make things happen.”
At the draft, Dan Rooney opened the Steelers Country exhibition at Point State Park, the team’s own contribution to the massive presence that enveloped Pittsburgh. While the league does plenty of the planning for the draft event, the success depends primarily on the abilities of the local partners.
“To put on this draft, it takes an incredible team and years in the making. Dan was at the helm of that,” NFL vice president Peter O’Reilly said on Wednesday at the Steelers Country ribbon-cutting.
Goodell went farther at the Taste of the Draft event on Wednesday evening: “This doesn’t happen without Dan Rooney.”
One of the interesting things about a family business is that the success of the future is always tied to the skillsets of the next generation, and each generation of Steelers leadership has approached it from different backgrounds. In an era where more and more NFL teams are owned by billionaire businessman and not football families, Dan Rooney seems uniquely poised to be able to bridge that gap.
Steelers veteran Cam Heyward has watched as Dan Rooney has risen through the ranks to earn his place, and he sees the vision for the future.
“You don’t want to kick Mr. Rooney out or anything, but I’m excited for when Danny takes over, because I’ve watched him go into every department and really learn what it all entails,” Heyward said on Thursday.
“I think that just makes you a really good owner. He cares. He has conversations with a lot of guys, and he wants to one day have a Super Bowl under his ownership. So I’m excited for where he takes off from here. He definitely learned the business. He’s gone the NFL route. He’s gone to coaching and helping out that way. The more you can do, the more you can learn, the more you feel confident in your job, and I think he’s going to do a great job.”
Don’t expect Art Rooney II to turn things over any time soon.
“My grandfather never retired, my father never retired, so I’m hoping to follow in their footsteps,” he said last January.
But he’s also following in their footsteps in another way, in getting his son involved in the team’s operations.
“Dan’s done a great job,” Art Rooney II said to Steelers Now on Saturday. “He’s really picked up the baton on a couple of major projects we’ve had recently. starting with our game in Ireland last year and with the draft he’s been a key member of the team over there on the North Shore. We have a great team of people working over that there have done a great job working with the league, so it’s been good to see him see what he’s done so far.
“I’m proud of him, really proud of him,” Rooney said. “He’s worked hard and you know his first job out of college was working in the league office, so he learned the ropes there, which really helped him for what he’s done with the draft, so it’s been it’s been great great to see how the progress he’s making.”’
The Steelers selected a bunch of top prospects while the 2026 NFL Draft was in Pittsburgh with hopes they’ll solidify the future of the team on the field, but in terms of the future team ownership, the top prospect is already getting rave reviews.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Next Generation of Steelers Leadership Gets Rave Reviews: ‘This Doesn’t Happen without Dan Rooney’
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