Cowboys Plan To Make Hosting Bid For 2016 Super Bowl

Added on Dec 20, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. That appears to be the thinking of the Dallas Cowboys who entered this season hoping to become the first NFL team in history to play in a Super Bowl on their home field. The team’s horrible start to the season torpedoed that plan, but it looks like they’re laying the groundwork to make another shot at NFL history. The Dallas Morning News reported this weekend that the Cowboys plan to bid on the right to host the 2016 game at their opulent new stadium.

The process is still at the preliminary stage, but the NFL started contacting teams about a month ago looking to secure a list of potential bidders for the next group of Super Bowl bids to be awarded (2015 through 2019). The Cowboys have reportedly indicated to the league that they plan to make a bid for the 2016 game–which has the significance of being the 50th Super Bowl. The official ‘party line’ at the moment is that everyone is focused on planning for February’s Super Bowl XVL at Cowboy Stadium, though Bill Lively, president and CEO of the Super Bowl XLV host committee, said that the plan all along has been to host more than one game:

“Everything we’ve done has been with the idea of building a template so that we’ll have a blueprint for the next time and we can do it even better.”

The 2016 Super Bowl (which will be Super Bowl L for those not versed in Roman numbers) could be the first job of a newly formed regional sports commission for the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. Although the best case Dallas could make for Super Bowl L will be a successful event in February, Cowboys Stadium has demonstrated an ability to host other big events including championship boxing matches.

And of course no one connected with the team will come right out and say it, the Cowboys would love to not only be the first team to win a Super Bowl on their home field but to win the 50th Super Bowl in Cowboys Stadium. They’ll need to home that no one beats them to it–a realistic possibility given the NFL’s new emphasis on awarding the Super Bowl to venues that host NFL teams. The 2012 game will be played on the Colts home field in Indianapolis followed by the Superdome home of the New Orleans Saints in 2013. 2014 could see two teams vie for the challenge, as it’ll be played in the Meadowlands–home of the New York Jets and Giants.