Tiger Weekly - Serving Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Cowboys Stadium, more than just a football venue

By Blake Oestriecher

It is the mecca of the sports and entertainment world, a colossal stadium that was the vision of football's most outspoken owner.

It is Cowboys Stadium, a grandiose $1.15 billion venue -- one of the most expensive sports venues ever built -- that is unparalleled in the United States. Its craftsmen, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, envisioned a stadium that would become the place for sporting and entertainment events. With the help of HKS Architects, Jones was able to make that vision a reality.

Cowboys Stadium truly is a marvel; a goliath of a stadium that measures 3 million square feet, making it hands down the largest indoor venue in the NFL. It typically seats 80,000 spectators for football games, and has already been the site of several notable contests.

Since the stadium opened in May 2009, it has hosted a BYU-Oklahoma college football game, the Big 12 Championship game between Nebraska and Texas as well as the 74th AT&T Cotton Bowl between Ole Miss and Oklahoma State. But Jones is a savvy businessman who knows that his larger-than-life venue is more than just a football stadium. It is the ideal locale for any type of entertainment.

In less than a year, Cowboys Stadium has played home to plenty of different crowds. Thousands of screaming teenage girls piled into the venue to watch the Jonas Brothers in concert while U2 brought its own legion of followers to the stadium in Arlington.

But even though it's the home of the NFL's most valuable franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, it was the NBA that truly put Cowboys Stadium on the map. It wasn't the first basketball game to be played in the new stadium - that honor belongs to the Texas Longhorns and North Carolina Tar Heels - but the 2010 NBA All-Star game lifted the venue to new heights.

On Valentine's Day, 108,713 fans attended the game, setting a new Guinness World Record for the highest-attended basketball game in history. It obliterated the previous record. It wasn't even close.

Cowboys Stadium won't stop hosting basketball games either. Fresh off the success of the All-Star game, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has already said he hopes the team will play a regular season or playoff game in the awe-inspiring venue. The stadium will also host the NCAA Final Four in 2014.

And just next year, Cowboys Stadium will host one of the most-watched television events, the Super Bowl. It beat out the University of Phoenix and Lucas Oil Stadiums - two of the NFL's newest stadiums -- in bidding for football's championship game.

With the All-Star game and the Super Bowl, Cowboys Stadium has been and will be surrounded by hoopla for the foreseeable future. But Jones already experienced one major disappointment when the planned Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather fight never came to fruition. Jones had hoped that arguably the biggest fight in boxing history would take place in Arlington, but the fight fell through to disputes over drug testing.

No worries though.

The stadium will still host a Pacquiao fight as he will lace up the gloves against Joshua Clottey for Pacquiao's WBO welterweight title next month. Holding the fight in such a mammoth stadium has some people skeptical. Will spectators sitting in the rafters be able to see two men fight in a ring that's roughly 20 x 20 feet?

All they have to do is look up.

Cowboys Stadium has the largest screen-structure in the world, a high-definition visual display that stretches 60 yards and displays 25,000 square feet of video. Oh yeah, there are roughly 3,000 Sony LCD screens throughout the stadium, too. So if you get up for a stop at the concessions or a restroom break, you won't miss any of the action.

It truly is a sight to see. No other stadium rivals it. And don't expect that to change anytime soon.

Originally Published: February 24, 2010

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