Pittsburgh Riverhounds

An ownership group led by local banker Paul Heasley was awarded a Pittsburgh expansion franchise in the USL A-League by USISL on March 11, 1998. Organizers planned for the team to begin play in the 1999 season, making it the first professional outdoor soccer team in the city since the Pittsburgh Phantoms folded after the 1967 NPSL season. The name "Riverdogs" was initially selected until the threat of legal action by the Charleston RiverDogs led the team to change their name to the Pittsburgh Riverhounds in December 1998.

The Riverhounds played their first match on May 1, 1999, against the Cincinnati Riverhawks at Bethel Park Stadium in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The team lost 3–2 in a penalty shootout after a scoreless draw in front of a sellout crowd of 5,639 spectators. Pittsburgh drew an average attendance of 4,178 in their inaugural season—the second-best in the league—and qualified for the A-League playoffs, where the Rochester Rhinos eliminated them in the second round. The team's attendance declined in later seasons as Heasley unsuccessfully pursued plans for a soccer-specific stadium to replace Bethel Park by 2005. The Riverhounds moved a tier below the A-League (later the USL First Division) to the USL Pro Soccer League (later the Second Division) in 2004 amid financial issues. The team underwent several ownership changes and continued to have unstable finances; it withdrew from competition for the 2007 season but continued to run its youth programs and the senior team returned the following year.

In April 2013, the team opened Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh with an initial capacity of 3,102 seats and plans for future expansions. The stadium cost $10.2 million to construct, entirely with private contributions, and was the result of several design and location changes. The Riverhounds successfully drew larger crowds at their new stadium and averaged 3,273 spectators during the 2013 season. The remaining financial issues and debts incurred from stadium construction caused the team to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2014, but it continued to play. Tuffy Shallenberger, a construction company owner and member of the ownership group, acquired majority ownership of the team and shifted its focus toward expanding its youth academy business. The Riverhounds unveiled a new crest and identity in 2018, replacing a cartoon dog with a modern roundel, and expanded Highmark Stadium to 5,000 seats.

The Riverhounds continued competing in the USL's third-division league as it evolved into USL Pro and later the USL Championship after receiving second-division sanctioning. In 2013, the team announced a plan to join Major League Soccer, the country's top-flight league, within the next decade as an expansion franchise. The plan would require further expansion of Highmark Stadium to meet the league's minimum seating capacity of 18,000. The Riverhounds have never submitted a formal bid for an MLS franchise during previous rounds of expansion.

The organization announced in 2024 that they would form a women's team, later named Pittsburgh Riveters SC, to play in the pre-professional USL W League the following year. Former academy director Scott Gibson was named as the team's head coach.