Terms of Use

DRAFT - pending attorney review. This page is a working draft and is not yet final legal terms.

Last updated: October 19, 2026

By using Black & Gold Dispatch you agree to these terms. Operator: Black & Gold Dispatch, 1026 Sophia Lane, Mars, PA 16046.

Unofficial fan site

Unofficial fan site. Not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by the Pittsburgh Steelers or the NFL. Team names are used only to identify the subject of our news coverage and fan discussion. No team or league logos are used.

Age requirement (13+)

You must be at least 13 years old to use Black & Gold Dispatch, including to create an account or post. At sign-up we ask your date of birth to check this; we don't store it. If you're under 13, you can't make an account, and the sign-up form stays closed on that device.

Our content and third-party content

Headlines link to their original publishers, who own those articles. Our summaries, grades, ratings, rankings and analysis are ours. Scores, schedules, stats and other data come from third-party sources and are provided as-is for personal, non-commercial use. They may not be copied or resold. You may not scrape the site in bulk except as allowed in our robots.txt and AI access terms.

Forum and community rules

Be respectful. No harassment, threats, hate speech, or personal attacks.
No false claims stated as fact about real people (for example invented injuries, arrests or quotes). Label opinions and rumors as such.
Don't impersonate players, coaches, insiders, journalists, staff or other users. Posts from the Dispatch Desk, our automatic house account, are always labeled.
Don't post copyrighted articles, paywalled text, photos or video you don't own. Link to the source instead.
No spam, scams, gambling or betting promotion, or illegal content. No sharing of others' personal information.
Use the Report button on any post that breaks these rules. Moderators may remove content and suspend accounts.

Illegal content

Never post or link to child sexual abuse material or any other illegal content. We remove it, preserve it as the law requires, and report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to law enforcement. Accounts involved are closed for good.

Intimate images shared without consent

Don't post or link to intimate images of anyone without their consent, including fake or computer-made ones. If you're shown in one, we remove it within 48 hours of a valid request: see Intimate image removal.

Full details are in our Community Guidelines.

Fan accounts

Accounts are free. To make one you must be 13 or older and give a username, an email address and a password. Keep your password private; you're responsible for what's posted from your account. One person, one account, especially for the Grade the Team poll and the Pick 'Em and Trivia leaderboard. We may hide or delete posts, and suspend or close accounts, that break these terms or the Community Guidelines. Sign-ins last 90 days on each device, and you can sign out everywhere from your profile. You can download your data or delete your account at any time from your profile (see the Privacy notice). We never recover or hand over accounts through the forum; account help goes through the Contact form only.

Pictures and uploads

Picture uploads are currently turned off: you can choose one of our preset avatars or use your initials. If uploads return, only upload images you own or have permission to use (no logos, no copyrighted photos, no explicit or hateful images), and pictures will be checked and approved by a moderator before they show. We can remove any picture or post at any time. If you believe something on the site infringes your copyright, contact us through the DMCA / Copyright page; we will remove infringing content on request.

Data sources and credits

Schedules, scores, team and player stats (including the rankings and passer ratings we compute), depth charts, rosters and injury reports come from nflverse, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0). Data: nflverse (CC-BY 4.0). We changed the data by filtering, totaling and ranking it. nflverse does not endorse us. Some history facts are adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). College prospect stats come from CollegeFootballData.com. Headlines and articles belong to their publishers.

Your posts

You keep ownership of what you post. You give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, display and distribute it on Black & Gold Dispatch. You are responsible for your posts.

Copyright and repeat-infringer policy

We respond to valid copyright notices under the DMCA (see our DMCA / Copyright page). We will, in appropriate circumstances, terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. An account that receives 3 valid copyright notices within 12 months is closed.

Membership and payments

Black & Gold Dispatch is free. There is no paid membership, subscription or paywall today. Forum accounts and the Founding Member badge for early joiners are free thank-yous, not paid tiers. If we ever offer a paid option, we will update these terms first and ask for clear consent before any charge.

Pick'em and trivia

Free to play, for fun only. No prizes, no entry fees, no wagering. Picks are saved on your device, or to your fan account if you're signed in.

Disclaimers and limits

The site is provided "as is". News and data can be wrong or late; rumors are labeled as rumors. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential damages. [Limitation of liability, indemnity, dispute resolution - TO BE DRAFTED BY ATTORNEY]

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute will be handled in the state or federal courts located in Butler County, Pennsylvania.

Contact

[email protected] · Call or text (412) 748-1640 · Contact form · Black & Gold Dispatch, 1026 Sophia Lane, Mars, PA 16046