North Texas gets Super Bowl
01:24 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 22, 2007
By BRUCE TOMASO /
The Dallas Morning News
btomaso@dallasnews.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington will host the 2011 Super Bowl, the National Football League announced today.
NFL owners, in a secret ballot, chose North Texas over bids from Arizona and Indianapolis.
The game is not only expected to turn the world's attention to the Dallas area – nearly 140 million people watched all or part of this year's Super Bowl, played in Miami – but also to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits to North Texas cities and businesses.
"This is going to be a wonderful, wonderful event," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said following the announcement. "The Super Bowl asked us to do what we could do to take it to another level. When you're talking about a Super Bowl, that's a pretty challenging commitment."
The new Cowboys stadium will hold almost 100,000 people, and far more visitors than that will flock to North Texas for Super Bowl XLV and the week of lavish events that will precede it. Dallas, Fort Worth, Irving and other area cities expect to share in the largesse.
Securing a Super Bowl was a priroity of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when he announced plans to build a retractable-roof stadium in Arlington. Neither Texas Stadium in Irving, the Cowboys' current home, nor the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park is suitable for the game, because neither has a roof that closes – an NFL requirement for cities where the weather is likely to be inclement in January and February.
Mr. Jones and his advisers wisely chose Roger Staubach – an immensely popular Hall of Fame quarterback whose name is synonymous with the Cowboys' glory days - as the public face of the North Texas Super Bowl bid. Mr. Staubach led the closed-door presentation to NFL owners this morning.
Arizona was considered a long shot to win the 2011 game, since it's already hosting next year's Super Bowl. In Indianapolis, a new, domed stadium is being built downtown for the Indianapolis Colts.
North Texas has never hosted a Super Bowl. Houston has hosted two – Super Bowl VII in 1974, which was played at Rice University Stadium, and Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, at Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans.