As if returning to the Super Bowl for a ninth time hasn’t been challenging enough, the Pittsburgh Steelers recently announced that the team will spearhead an effort to host Super Bowl LVII at Heinz Field in 2023.

A few days later, tourism promotion agency VisitPittsburgh asked for a 2-percentage-point increase in Allegheny County’s hotel tax — in part to fund a new sports commission charged with bringing big sporting events to Pittsburgh.

The dual announcements invite Allegheny County residents to question how we leverage millions in local tax revenues to attract visitors and how much the community benefits from staging high-profile events. While we can applaud the Steelers and civic leaders for their nerve in trying to attract a Super Bowl to our mid-sized market, we might set our collective aim on a far better prize.

Pittsburgh has proven itself up to the challenge of hosting Major League Baseball All-Star games, golf’s U.S. Open, the NHL Winter Classic, preliminary rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship and the NCAA Frozen Four. Still, we lack a “first-day” attraction capable of drawing tourism dollars year ’round from beyond a 150-mile radius.

The seed of an idea for such an attraction, I believe, lies within Pittsburgh’s fertile sports history: the site of the first baseball World Series, the first sports radio broadcast (KDKA) and the city most associated with NFL Super Bowl success.

Imagine a state-of-the art attraction that immerses visitors in the play-by-play drama and symbiotic relationship between sports and broadcasting. This “Every Day Is Game Day” attraction could deliver an irresistible mashup of digital and analog sports story telling. Think the Newseum meets Cooperstown. Beyond anchor exhibits — the World Series Experience and the Super Bowl Experience — travelling and online exhibits could highlight threads such as Pittsburgh Courier writer Wendell Smith’s coverage of Jackie Robinson.

The region has many potential champions for such a visitor attraction, including national broadcasting talent with local ties — ESPN’s John Buccigross and John Clayton, and NBC/​NHL lead announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick.

Regional tourism and sports officials could also tap Harmar-based NEP, the world’s largest mobile sports production company. Next month, NEP will unveil its latest state-of-the-art mobile unit — the production base for next year’s Super Bowl 50 (move aside roman numerals). CBS Executive Vice President of Sports Operations Ken Aagaard will attend that unveiling and his production team will cover Super Bowl 50 next February at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

Mr. Aagaard previously led the team charged with advancing instant replay for the 2001 Super Bowl, developing 360-degree EyeVision with input from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.

“The business of sports and sports broadcasting is changing dramatically,” Mr. Aagaard said in a phone interview. He and a few industry friends launched the online Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2007 to honor talent — on air and behind the scenes — that helped make sports such a fixture of American civic life and culture.

Mr. Aagaard says that the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame would love to find a bricks-and-mortar home — and acknowledges the seminal role of KDKA in the birth of sports broadcasting.

“I will talk to anyone,” he said. “I would like to give this Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame a home — there are so many great innovators in this field and when people visit our website, they always comment, “I had no idea how this technology or that advance happened.”

Western Pennsylvania has stood flat-footed in the past, missing out on both the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Since opening in 1995, the rock hall has welcomed more than 10 million visitors and driven more than $2 billion into the Cleveland economy. Even underdog Canton has shown imagination and foresight — with plans for an expanded Hall of Fame Village that the state of Ohio estimates will bring a 25-year return of $4.8 billion in net new personal earnings and $1 billion in new tax revenues.

Last year, Allegheny County reaped nearly $32 million in tourism tax revenue.?

Long after the lights from a Heinz Field Super Bowl halftime show fade in 2023, police overtime is paid and banners taken down, will the region’s residents benefit from any lasting economic good?

While hosting a Super Bowl in 2023 might give us bragging rights for a few months, we need to follow the lead of our Ohio rivals and also look to build something more consequential and game-changing.

R. Todd Erkel is a writer, historical tourism consultant and city lover, among other things (toddwriter@mac.com). He lives in Swissvale.

First Published July 12, 2015, 12:00am