Along with the normal preparations at Cowboys Stadium, community service has been a top priority in the weeks and months leading up to Super bowl XLV.
It is the responsibility of the Super bowl Host committee to plan and prepare for the event. For the North Texas Super Bowl Host committee, former Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman are chairman and vice-chairman, respectively.
The Community
An estimated 250, people are expected to travel to North Texas for the Super bowl, and out of those, only approximately 100,000 have tickets to attend the game. The rest are coming either to enjoy parties and events or to work on game day as, for instance, caterers and event planners.
Despite some concern over traffic, Vice President and COO of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee Tara Green says there will be little more than a slight increase in traffic in the Metroplex until game day.
“Anytime you bring 150,000 people into an area for a four-day window, you have to
assume it’s going to have some kind of impact of traffic,” said Green, who lives in Coppell. “The good news is that we have a large region with a fully functioning highway system, so the fans will be able to move around easily. The only real problem is going to be on game day. I recommend that if there’s a way for you to avoid getting on I-30 on Feb. 6, avoid it.”
One tip Green offers for attendees of the game is to visit the host committee’s website, www.northtexassuperbowl.com and locate their assigned parking spots and buy their parking passes. She says it is important for fans to know the route they are taking to the stadium and to plan ahead when it comes to departing for the stadium, noting road closures and alternative routes indicated on the website.
Fortunately, along with cheeseheads, the amount of tourism will spike in Dallas thanks to Super Bowl XLV.
“I think the Super Bowl is going to have a long-term impact on our tourism efforts,” Green said. “The Super Bowl is a marketing tool. It’s an economic generator, absolutely. But it’s also a tool that our destination can use to promote itself to future leisure travelers, corporate decision makers, event planners. The NFL estimates that 60 percent of everybody coming to the game is a corporate decision maker, which means they can influence bringing business meetings, board meetings, trade shows, conventions, and even their own leisure travel, back to our area.
“The state of Louisiana estimates in the year after hosting the Super Bowl, their tourism numbers increased by one million. The power of the viewing audience of the Super Bowl resonates with people long after the game is over.”
The viewing audience has power as well, because their personal travel could be effected by the game.
“The Super Bowl is broadcast in over 200 countries, worldwide viewing audience of over a million people,” Green said. “Last year’s Super Bowl was the most watched television show in history. Not just the most watched sporting event, it surpasses the season finale of “M.A.S.H” as the most watched TV show, period.”
The Stadium
Work is being done on and around the stadium to prepare for the game. Coppell resident Dwin Towell also serves as the Director of Broadcast Engineering Services for Cowboys Stadium and is in charge of all television production and interface with the media.
“From a technical standpoint, we’re doing a lot of additional wiring to accommodate all the media satellite uplink and broadcast trucks,” Towell said. “And of course as far as the big center home video board is concerned, we’re doing a lot of additional rigging for sound and lighting within the hull to enhance the experience.”
Even from the outside, the changes are obvious to the public. A chain link fence with Super Bowl logos woven through it completely surrounds the stadium. The parking lots are a city of office trailers and pavilion tents set up to accommodate the different clubs and game experience exhibits for the guests when they arrive.
The biggest challenge for Towell will be orchestrating between all of the different journalists and broadcasts. A different group broadcasts the game, the halftime show, and the pregame and postgame shows, so these are all different groups that have to be interfaced.
“Now coming up, we’ll have all the international broadcasters arrive because it’s an international event, which means [Cowboys Stadium] will become a 24-hour facility supporting their broadcasting and that will begin about a week prior to the telecast,” Towell said. “So this will become a day-and-night enterprise very shortly.”
The game will be broadcast internationally to almost every country and overseas for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Already, international journalists from Japan and Mexico have visited the stadium to conduct pre-game interviews.
When it comes to security, the Super Bowl is a Level 1 security event, placing it on the same level as the Presidential Inauguration.
“I would have to guess that [Cowboys Stadium] will be the safest place in the world on game day,” Green said.
The Black Eyed Peas will be performing at halftime on game day and the preparation for it has been conducted many times already.
“For the halftime show, quite a bit is being done because we have to do all of the pre-staging,” Towell said. “The unique thing about a halftime show as opposed to a regular concert is they have such a limited time to set up. They’re going to have about eight to 12 minutes to have the stage totally set, performance, then remove everything off the field in time for the game to resume. So the logistics of doing must be rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed again, but failure is not an option for that particular part of the program.”
Towell has a lot of responsibility, but he jokes that there is one thing which can never go wrong.
“One thing we don’t have to contend with is weather,” he said. “We can always depend on to be a nice 72 degrees inside the stadium.”
The Outreach
To win the Super Bowl bid, the committee became devoted to involving the community of North Texas throughout the preparation process. In order to positively impact the area, the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee partnered with leading non-profit association Big Thought and SLANT 45 (Service Learning Adventures in North Texas) was created.
Named after a play run by the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s, SLANT 45 organized elementary school aged children into teams for service learning projects across North Texas. In all, 50 years worth of community service hours have been logged during the project.
SLANT 45 is the largest community service learning initiative involving children in the country, with about 40,000 participating and logging 445,814 hours of service. The project is headed by former Dallas Cowboys fullback Daryl Johnston.
SLANT 45 Project Manager Amanda Duquette says the community impact for North Texas has been enormous.
“The kids were divided into ‘teams’ with ‘playbooks’ where they could get together and plan their own creative service learning project,” Duquette said. “There was everything from food drives to clothing drives to helping the elderly, anything the kids could dream up.”
Other former Cowboys also participated in the program, though not as extensively as Johnston.
“Current Cowboys player Felix Jones attended a food project in Plano and former player Russell Maryland and Drew Pearson have also been to several events,” Duquette said. “But Daryl [Johnston] is the most active player involved in the program.”
Coppell was greatly represented at SLANT 45. Valley Ranch Elementary did a school-wide fundraising program in alliance with SLANT 45.
SLANT 45 is not the only way to volunteer. The most coveted volunteer opportunities are on the day of the game, however all of the spots were quickly filled several months ago. Every one of the 10,000 volunteer positions for Super Bowl day was filled by Oct. 31 because the NFL needed time to do background checks on each volunteer in order to guarantee the safety of the event.
The Fans
For most fans, attending the game is not an option. However, with several Super Bowl related events throughout the Metroplex, there is plenty to do. The NFL Experience is one such activity.
Taking place at the Dallas Convention Center starting Jan. 27, the NFL Experience is an interactive football theme park that will continue until the day of the Super Bowl.
“It’s an awesome way to get a firsthand look at the Super Bowl,” Green said. “It’s a family event. There are punt, pass and kick competitions, there’s a Hall of Fame exhibit, there’s a huge Super Bowl merchandise store inside it, there are different bands that play, it’s just an awesome way to get up-close and personal with the Super Bowl.”
Sophomore Everett Schau intended to go to the Super Bowl if the Chicago Bears had defeated the Green Bay Packers for the NFC Championship loss, so he must be content with a party with friends.
“[My family and friends] are having a party where there will be a big poll about what goes on during the Super Bowl, who’s going to win, different stats, quarterback outcomes, everything,” Schau said. “We’re just predicting the game, basically.”
Schau will even be pulling for the Packers.
Even without tickets, local fans and fans around the world will be able to participate in the festivities, by either watching, visiting, or attending events and parties. There’s no shortage of ways to get involved in the massive event hitting the Metroplex on Feb. 6.
