"What so proudly we watched, at the twilight's last 'reaming."
-- Christina Aguilera, Star-Spangled Banner (Get Dirrrty remix) 2011
After a week of unprecedented winter weather in the Metroplex had finally cleared by Saturday afternoon, it appeared the stage was set for what would still be a flawless, epic Super Bowl weekend despite some of the problems that were highly publicized by national media during the week.
SI's Peter King blasted DFW on Twitter, leading a revolt by a bunch of people who were getting fed three meals a day at the media center and didn't have to spend a dime of their own money to get here. We heard it all. "Dallas" (North Texas) is the worst host ever. Good luck getting another Super Bowl. The rants went on and on, as if DFW had any control over any of this.
But all of that was in the past. Sunday was going to beautiful and would remind everyone what a great host DFW could be. Ummm.
Instead, about the only things that went well for DFW on Sunday was the down-to-the-wire finish of the game, which the Packers won 31-25, and the fact that Rangers Public Enemy No. 1 Alex Rodriguez was caught on worldwide television letting his girlfriend Cameron Diaz feed him popcorn in Jerry Jones' luxury box. Ha!
The list of bad, unfortunately, was much, much longer.
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We already mentioned the weather. That's old news. There was the butchering of the National Anthem by Christina Aguilera, which made for some priceless shots of Packers players and coaches looking confused.
Then, there's the halftime show. The awful sound (by the way, never go to a concert there, it's not worth your money, just ask U2 fans), and the cell phone service that was supposed to be bolstered by extra capacity but instead forced Will.i.am to NOT be able to tweet during his halftime performance. Darn.
Of course, there was the incident with the ice falling from the stadium roof and injuring some folks. Finally, to top it all off, approximately 1,250 ticketed fans weren't able to enter the stadium at first because the temporary seats weren't ready/deemed safe. Disaster. 850 of them were relocated to comparable or better seats, and 400 were forced to go to the club behind the Steelers bench and watch the game on TV with free food and beverage. It's since come out that all of those 400 fans were refunded three times the face value ($800), allowed on the field for postgame festivities and will be allowed to attend Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis as "guests of the NFL." Not a bad deal for those folks.
Just keep in mind though, NOTHING that went wrong this week was the fault of Jerry Jones or the DFW hosting committee. Weather? Not their fault. Christina? Not their fault. Cell phone service? Not their fault. Most importantly, the ticket situation was not their fault. The NFL controls everything about the Super Bowl. The NFL took control of Cowboys Stadium on Jan. 8. The host stadium doesn't have control over anything. It's ALL the NFL's fault.
So don't worry, folks. The Super Bowl will be back, and it will be back very soon, within 5-6 years, I'd say. In fact, they're already shooting for Super Bowl L (50). The attendance was just 766 shy of breaking the Super Bowl record. It will be back.
Now, how many days til pitchers and catchers report?
