North Texas Super Bowl Could Set Ticket Sales Record At $93M

DALLAS (AP) _ From hotel rooms to golf courses, plenty of numbers are included in North Texas' winning Super Bowl bid made public Wednesday. <br/><br/>But by the looks of it, the $1 billion the Cowboys

Wednesday, May 23rd 2007, 6:42 pm

By: News On 6

DALLAS (AP) _ From hotel rooms to golf courses, plenty of numbers are included in North Texas' winning Super Bowl bid made public Wednesday.

But by the looks of it, the $1 billion the Cowboys spent on their new stadium is probably the number that swayed NFL owners most.

The sleek, state-of-the-start facility promises to seat at least 93,221 fans for Super Bowl XLV and provide the chance for a record $93 million in ticket sales, according to the lengthy proposal bid submitted by the North Texas Super Bowl Committee.

The proposal was earlier distributed to NFL owners, who selected Arlington on Tuesday to host the Super Bowl in 2011, two years after the Cowboys open their stadium nestled between Dallas and Fort Worth. Indianapolis and the Arizona Cardinals stadium in suburban Phoenix were the other two finalists.

``We're going to get into it pretty fast,'' Hall of Famer Roger Staubach, chairman of the North Texas committee, said Wednesday after returning from the NFL owner's meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

In their bid, the North Texas group promised 90,000 hotel rooms for Super Bowl fans, more than 11,000 luxury hotel rooms for NFL use and 38,000 area restaurants. The pitch also boasts neighboring Mexico and North Texas' ability to expose the game to a growing Hispanic fan base.

The bid, hundreds of pages long, is mostly a checklist of amenities and fixtures the NFL demands for a Super Bowl host city. Required are first-class golf courses nearby (check), 10,000 available rental cars (check) and permission for surrounding bars and restaurants to serve alcohol until 4 a.m. after the game (no, but the NFL is free to petition the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.)

But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' vision of hosting a Super Bowl with more than 100,000 fans might have been the clincher. In addition to the more than 93,000 guaranteed seats, the Cowboys believe they can fit more than 14,000 additional fans in other parts of the 2.3-million-square-foot facility.

Only four of 41 Super Bowls had six-figure attendance, all at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

The North Texas group also promised the NFL access to a record 150 luxury suites, use of the Dallas Convention Center for its NFL Experience event and use of TCU's facilities for the AFC team. The NFC champion will practice at the Cowboys' Valley Ranch headquarters in Irving, according to the proposal.

Staubach said one of his first priorities will be assembling a staff to study other Super Bowl host cities. Shuttling fans between Arlington and neighboring cities is also a concern, since Arlington is the largest city in the country without public transportation.

``We'll get a handle on the transportation because that's going to be a big part of it,'' Staubach said.

The Super Bowl will be the third played in Texas. Houston has hosted the other two, once at Rice Stadium in 1974 and again at Reliant Stadium 30 years later.