Dollars tilt decision in Dallas' favor
Jerry Jones is building the NFL's biggest stadium and on Tuesday it paid off with the announcement that Super Bowl XLV is coming to North Texas, writes Len Pasquarelli.
NASHVILLE -- Even in a league that generates more than $6 billion annually, an extra $25 million-$30 million can't hurt, right?
And that's essentially what NFL owners decided here Tuesday afternoon in awarding the bid for Super Bowl XLV to the North Texas contingent in a competition with proposals from Indianapolis and the Phoenix area. The game will be played in February 2011.
For the right to host what figures to be known as the first "Dallas Super Bowl," even though it will be held in the Cowboys' new billion-dollar stadium in Arlington, Texas, it took the North Texas group four ballots. With the Phoenix area bounced from consideration on an earlier ballot, Dallas edged Indianapolis, 17-15.
Why? Because for all the rhetoric devoted Tuesday to the excellent presentations staged by each of the three cities vying for Super Bowl XLV, money still talks louder in the NFL than anything else. And in the Super Bowl sweepstakes, it's clear that "Big D," for the NFL owners, translated into Big Dollars.
The football Taj Mahal being constructed by always forward-thinking Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will seat roughly 100,000 fans and include more than 200 luxury suites. That's a capacity of 25,000-30,000 more than either of the other stadiums bidding for the game. A ticket for Super Bowl XLV is projected at $900 and could be $1,000 by the time the game is played. With 25,000-30,000 more seats at a grand a pop, well, you do the math.
And that huge differential is in just ticket revenues alone. Factor in the ancillary revenues, the prospect of 25,000 or 30,000 more patrons each buying a $5 hot dog or a $7 beer, and the money gap between Dallas and the other two cities is notable. Certainly it was noted by Jones' fraternity brothers.
Asked if the advantage the Cowboys' stadium enjoyed over the others was an element in the outcome of the voting, Jones candidly acknowledged: "It should have and it did." Several hours later, in his wrap-up news conference Tuesday evening, commissioner Roger Goodell cited the "extraordinary capacity" of Jones' new showplace stadium, set to open in 2009.
The Indianapolis committee arrived here with $20 million in hand, raised through corporate donations and pledges, to help fund a game it sorely wanted to help validate the city as big-time. Aware of the Indianapolis largesse, the North Texas group on Monday evening revised its bid and raised the number of luxury suites Jones will make available. So when North Texas made a 20-minute pitch Tuesday morning, the effect was that of having added another 24-karat gold ingot to the dowry.
Said one AFC owner who claimed he steadfastly voted for Indianapolis on all four ballots: "The dollar disparity, even for me, was hard to ignore."
Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach played a prominent part in the presentation by the North Texas committee, and the group kept alluding to his importance in securing an event that Jones promised will be humongous. Staubach has enough legend surrounding him, though, that he hardly needs the kind of instant urban legend the committee attempted to assign to his role.
"We'd all be a little naïve," Staubach allowed after the vote, "to think the (disparate) revenues weren't a key to some of the (other owners)."
Everything is bigger, they claim, in Texas. And when Jones decided to build his new facility, his plans were grandiose from the outset.
He is building himself the NFL's biggest stadium. And Tuesday, there was little doubt that it paid off in a big way.
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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