Will Cowboys’ palace get another chance?
Nearly five years after hosting its first Super Bowl, the question hangs over Jerry Jones’ temple to excess more ominously than the ridiculously large video screens above the field:
Will AT&T Stadium in Arlington ever host another Super Bowl?
Had that question been asked about the originally named Cowboys Stadium prior to Super Bowl XLV, the answer probably would have been a quick, “Of course!”
After all, “Jerry’s World” was a state-of-the-art, $1.2 billion jewel when finished in 2009. Allowing for standingroom-only crowds, it could hold 110,000 people (the Super Bowl attendance was 103,219), had a movable roof (no more gaping hole in the roof like that of Texas Stadium), was the largest dome in the world (3 million square feet) with the largest column-free interior, and had 180-foot-by-120-foot glass doors on either end. And then there were the video screens — four in all — which stretched from one 20-yard line to the other with the two sideline-facing screens weighing 1.2 million pounds each.
But after that first Super Bowl, in which the Packers beat the Steelers 31-25 and Aaron Rodgers was named the MVP, the stadium has yet to host a second NFL title game and there are few indications it’s even on the league’s radar for future games.
After Levi’s Stadium next month, the Super Bowl will be at Reliant Stadium in Houston in 2017 and then at an as-yet unbuilt stadium in Minneapolis in 2018. In May, the NFL announced its finalists for the 2019 and 2020 Super Bowls and Arlington wasn’t on the list (Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans and Tampa, Fla.).
There were issues in the construction of then-Cowboys Stadium (a worker was electrocuted in June 2008, less than a week after a crane collapse injured three other workers) and days before the Super Bowl there a half-dozen people were hurt when they were hit by snow and ice that fell off the stadium roof.
But it’s the seating inside — or, more accurately, the lack thereof — that may be influencing the NFL the most.
To fit as many people into the building as possible, several temporary seating sections were added, but several weren‘t finished on time and more than 1,000 people who had purchased tickets to the game were either moved to less desirable seats (some with obstructed views), were forced to stand throughout the game or were unable to watch it at all.
A lawsuit was filed and it wasn’t until last spring that a jury awarded the group $76,000. But that didn’t please the ticket holders, and in August they appealed the decision. Watching as it’s been dragged through the legal system for nearly half a decade is doing nothing to convince the NFL to return to the stadium.
The Super Bowl, of course, isn’t the only game in town, and the stadium has — among other things — hosted the NCAA men’s Final Four in 2014 and, in January, the inaugural championship game of the NCAA’s College Football Playoff era.
And then there are the Cowboys, who are 4-8 this year and have hosted only one playoff game in their new home.
Like Super Bowl visits, not exactly the kind of postseason frequency Jones expected when he built the place.