Sports in Pittsburgh Sports in Pittsburgh Sports in Pittsburgh have been played dating back to the American Civil War. Baseball, hockey, and the first professional American football game had been played in the city by 1892. Pittsburgh was first known as the "City of Champions" when the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Panthers, and Pittsburgh Steelers won multiple championships in the 1970s. Today, the city has three major professional sports franchises, the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins; while the University of Pittsburgh Panthers compete in a Division I BCS conference, the highest level of collegiate athletics in the United States, in both football and basketball. Local
Revival (sports team) ways and the term is used differently in different situations. A team can be simply not fielded for a season, but the parent organization still exists. A team and franchise can relocate to another city, and adopt a new nickname. At some point, sometimes decades later, a new team, with a new organization, then revives the team, name or colours in the original city. It may or may not be granted possession of the original team's history (team records, championships and the like) A team can be members of a sports association that fields several teams. A team at one