Draft dodging: Pitt students avoid North Shore crowds, attend NFL Draft watch parties in Oakland

With the NFL Draft underway on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, some Pitt students chose to observe from afar.

From South Oakland porches to popular bars and restaurants, Pitt students held and attended watch parties to witness the first 32 picks of the 2026 NFL Draft. Many chose to stay local to avoid the anticipated Thursday night crowds.  

According to an estimation by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during Thursday night’s broadcast, Downtown Pittsburgh drew a record-breaking crowd of 320,000 people on Night One. Pitt’s finals week begins the Monday after the draft, causing many students to choose academics over attending the event. 

Amber Mckaveney graduated from Pitt in December with a degree in economics and now works at BNY in Downtown Pittsburgh. She chose to watch the draft from Bootleggers in South Oakland because of how “insane” Night One may be closer to the venue.

“I worked from home today because we were scared that the draft was gonna be so insane in Pittsburgh. But now that I know it’s everyone’s having fun, it’s chill. I’m ready to go down tomorrow,” Mckaveney said.

Thomas Takach, a sophomore media and communications major, will watch the draft with a few friends in Oakland. Like Mckaveney, he worried the in-person celebrations today would feature overwhelming crowds, but said he’d consider heading downtown on Friday or Saturday.

“Unless you left at, like, noon, you weren’t going to be anywhere near the stadium,” Takach said.

Santino Desimone, a junior economics major, invited three friends to a small NFL Draft watch party on his porch in South Oakland. He planned to go downtown and watch the draft in person, but ultimately decided against it because of his work and finals schedule. 

“I think the draft being in Pittsburgh, especially in my junior year of college, is pretty cool,” Desimone said. “I’m pretty upset that I’m going to miss the opportunity to go. But at the same time, the vibes [in Pittsburgh and around campus] are awesome with it.” 

Addison Seanor, a first-year biology major on the pre-med track, left Oakland earlier in the day to explore the draft venue but returned to watch the selection from Viva Los Tacos on Forbes Avenue. 

“We just kind of wanted to go see what was down there before the draft, and then see what the stage was like, and see where the setups were at,” Seanor said.

Seanor found the early crowds more manageable than expected, and as a result, may venture back to the North Shore on Saturday when crowds are expected to subside.

Tyler Hoesch, a sophomore economics and statistics major, is an Eagles fan who watched the draft from Stack’d on Forbes Avenue. He chose the location instead of Downtown because of the Thursday night half-price wings and academic commitments.

“I have finals to study for, and Downtown is simply just too crowded right now,” Hoesch said.

Lowell Jithesh, a senior chemistry major, and Marc Melanson, a senior computational biology major, attended the draft Downtown at 7 p.m. but left before 9 p.m. to watch the rest at Primanti Bros in Oakland.

“It’s a fun experience. I mean, we had a lot of people who were pretty ecstatic about their picks,” Jithesh said.

Melanson said traffic in and out of Downtown was surprisingly manageable, but the draft venue itself was “very crowded.” Ultimately, he was satisfied with their decision to head home early.

“[We] ended up just kind of wasting our time there, in a way,” Melanson said. “We were happy we went. We can’t, like, not go to the draft. Happy we went, but happy we left and just enjoyed the draft here in Oakland.”