Like the price of gasoline, the cost to watch a Steelers game at Heinz Field keeps increasing.

The Steelers raised the prices on some but not all of their 65,050 seats in Heinz Field, with the increases announced in a mailing sent to season ticket-holders this week. Those that did go up, however, rose by as much as 21 percent.

Tickets that ranged in cost from $59 to $74 per game last season will cost between $59 and $90 this year, meaning many of the grandstand seats throughout the stadium will cost the same this season as they did last season.

All club seat prices were raised, however. They ranged in price from $150 to $212 per ticket last season, and will cost between $175 and $240 this year.

Although the Steelers did not say how many seats were affected by the price increase, nor provide the average cost per ticket, they maintain they are far from the more expensive tickets in the NFL.

"Our prices in past seasons were below the NFL average," team spokesman Dave Lockett wrote in a statement. "We needed to increase the prices to remain competitive. The current prices bring us up to around the NFL average."

The Steelers' average cost of $66 per ticket last season ranked 19th among the 32 NFL teams, according to a list published in January by HoustonTexans.com -- that compared with New England's average ticket price of $90.91, the highest in the NFL.

Many of the big-market teams rank high on the list of average price, such as No. 2 Washington at $88.59, No. 3 Dallas at $84.52, and rounding out the top five, the two New York teams, the Giants at $80.97 and the Jets at $79.87.

Jacksonville, which rarely sells out its home games, had the lowest average price in the NFL at $45.19.

Two of the Steelers' three AFC North Division rivals had higher average ticket prices before the recent increase at Heinz Field: Baltimore, sixth in the NFL, at $76.94, and Cincinnati, a nickel more than the Steelers, at $66.05. Cleveland, the fourth team in the division, was among the NFL bargains with an average ticket price of $48.54, fourth from the bottom.

The Steelers have sold out every home game since 1972, except for one when they offered refunds for a replacement game during the 1987 players' strike.