By BJ Austin, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-950708.mp3
Dallas, TX – The "Monday morning quarterbacking" begins today on the first North Texas Super Bowl. Organizers were hoping to set attendance records and WOW the fans with Texas hospitality. Those plans may have fallen victim to winter weather and last minute glitches at Cowboys Stadium. KERA's BJ Austin reports.
Some fans arriving at Cowboys stadium had to wait in line as long as a couple of hours to get in. At least three entrances were closed because of concerns about "ice" falling from the roof of the billion dollar stadium. Six people were injured when ice fell on Friday. Others had ticket problems, and inside, workers were still installing temporary seating two hours before kickoff.
Some fans found themselves without the seats they had paid for. The NFL, in a statement said: Incomplete installation of temporary seats in a limited number of sections made the seats unusable.
The statement said the NFL, Dallas Cowboys and the city of Arlington put safety first. 400 fans were out of luck. The NFL says it will refund triple the cost of the face value of their tickets - said to be 900 dollars.
About 850 fans with tickets in four temporary sections were moved to similar or better seats. The NFL statement says : We regret the situation and inconvenience that it may have caused. We will conduct a full review of this matter.
For fans getting into the game relatively problem-free, the memories of Super Bowl 45 will undoubtedly be much better - even with the ice and snow stricken Super Bowl Week.
Valerie Borokowski: We have been greeted by a lot of friendly Texans. Everyone's welcomed us in.
That's Steelers fan Valerie Borokowski ready to board the Trinity Railway Express at Dallas' Union Station - bound for the Centre Port/DFW Airport stop and a shuttle bus to Cowboys Stadium.
Her friend Cindy Bier says they rented a car upon arrival, and getting from DFW Airport to the hotel on icy roads was an experience.
Bier: I was totally surprised that it wasn't scraped off, cleaned off. We deal with cold and snow, but we plow it, we salt it, we shovel it. You folks down here don't do any of the above. We were a little shocked about that, but riding the public transportation saved us.
Cindy says they also rode DART from their downtown-area hotel to a Plano bar and grille that proclaimed itself the Steeler Nation Bar.
Packer fan, Bob Nowakowski says he'd always heard that everything's bigger in Texas but he didn't expect that to apply to traffic. The Nowakowski's navigated their rental car to downtown Fort Worth and the Stockyards.
Bob Nowakowski: It surprised me that we saw traffic cops out there, even where the signals were just to keep traffic moving. Tremendous traffic and being from Wisconsin we're not used to driving in a lot of traffic.
Friday and Saturday, traffic in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth was bumper to bumper as the weather warmed and the party started for Super Bowl arrivals.
On the Dallas side, Steelers fans Mark Wallace and Nick Evashavik were celebrating.
Mark Wallace: My impression is that Jerry Jones could have spent another 100 thousand dollars on some salt.
Nick Evashavik: The snow removal stinks, and we need a little better traffic control from the officers to get the vehicles moving. But hey, I'm having a good time despite all that.
The North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee raised about 40 million dollars to prepare for the big game in the high tech, billion dollar Cowboys stadium, and had high hopes this Super Bowl would land others, maybe as soon as 2016. The promise of more North Texas' Super Bowls could rest on a mixed review of the inaugural performance.