Arthur (Art) Joseph Rooney Sr (Also known as "The Chief" (January 27, 1901–August 25, 1988) was the American founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise in the National Football League. The son of Irish Catholic immigrants from Newry in County Down, Ireland. Rooney was a lifelong resident of the Pittsburgh area having been born in Coulterville, Pennsylvania and raised on the North Side of Pittsburgh.

He graduated from Duquesne Prep (later Duquesne High School, which closed in 2007). In keeping with his Catholic background, he then went on to Duquesne University. Since then, many members of the Rooney family have graduated from Duquesne and have made many endowments to the university.

His affiliation with the NFL began in 1933 after he traveled to Saratoga Race Course in New York and won at least $2,500 in a parlay of longshot winners. He soon used that $2,500 to pay the required National Football League franchise entrance fee for a club based in the city of Pittsburgh, which he had named the Pirates (also the name of the city's long-established Major League Baseball club, which Rooney was a fan of as a child). Since the league's founding in 1920, the NFL had wanted a team in Pittsburgh due to the city's already-long history with football as well as the popularity of the Pittsburgh Panthers football team, an NCAA national championship contender during this period.

The league was finally able to take advantage of Pennsylvania relaxing their blue laws that prior to 1933 prohibited sporting events from taking place on Sundays, when most NFL games take place.

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