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Pittsburgh Steelers
Founded in 1933, the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC. Pittsburgh has won more Super Bowl titles (6), AFC Championship Games (7) and hosted more conference championship games (10) than any other AFC or NFC team. They have played in more AFC conference championship games than any other team and are tied with the Dallas Cowboys with 14 championship game appearances in either the NFC or AFC contests. With the exception of the 1960s which featured only three Super Bowls, the Steelers have appeared in at least one Super Bowl in every decade of the contest. The Steelers won their most recent championship, Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009.
The Steelers are the fifth-oldest franchise in the NFL, They were founded in 1933 by Art Rooney. 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. The team has a large fan base nicknamed Steeler Nation. For the most part, the Steelers have used black and gold as their colors since the club's inception. Unique to Pittsburgh, the Steelers' black and gold colors are now shared by all major professional teams in the city, including the Pirates and Penguins.
The Steelers logo was introduced in 1962 and is based on the “Steelmark” originally designed by Pittsburgh's US Steel and now owned by the American Iron and Steel Institute. In fact, it was Cleveland based Republic Steel that that suggested the Steelers adopt the industry logo. It consists of the word "Steelers" surrounded by three astroids. The original meanings behind the astroids were, "Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure, and widens your world." Later, the colors came to represent the ingredients used in the steel-making process: yellow for coal, red for iron ore, and blue for scrap steel. While the formal Steelmark logo contains only the word "Steel," the team was given permission to add "ers" in 1963 after a petition to AISI.
The Steelers are the only NFL team that puts its logo on only one side of the helmet (the right side). Longtime field and equipment manager Jack Hart was instructed to do this by Art Rooney as a test to see how the logo appeared on the gold helmets; however, its popularity led the team to leave it that way permanently. A year after introducing the logo, they switched to black helmets to make it stand out more.
The current uniform designs were introduced in 1968. The design consists of gold pants and either black jerseys or white jerseys, except for the 1970 and 1971 seasons when the Steelers wore white pants with their white jerseys. In 1997, the team switched to rounded numbers on the jersey to match the number font (Futura Condensed) on the helmets, and a Steelers logo was added to the left side of the jersey.
The current third uniform, consisting of a black jersey with gold lettering, white pants with black and gold stripes, and a gold helmet were first used during the Steelers' 75th anniversary season in 2007. They were meant to evoke the memory of the 1963–64 era uniforms. The uniforms were so popular among fans that the Steeler organization decided to keep them and use them as a third option during home games only. The popularity of the Steelers has created a huge demand for Pittsburgh Steelers apparel. This demand for Pittsburgh Steelers apparel can be evident at Steelers games where fans stand in line to purchase jerseys, hats, helmets, jackets, caps, etc all bearing the Steelers’ logo.