NFL Will Count Outside The Stadium Standing Tickets In Super Bowl Attendance

Added on Jan 19, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

One of the stranger stories coming out of Dallas in the weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLV concerns the decision to sell standing room tickets in what the league bills as the ‘NFL Fan Plaza’. We talked about the concept of selling tickets to basically stand outside the stadium and watch the game on big video screens a few days ago, and now a few more details have come out with the biggest news being that these tickets will count in the Super Bowl paid attendance.

The NFL released a statement affirming that the outside the stadium/NFL Fan Plaza ducats would count in the paid attendance of the game, which is significant since if the team can sell 15,000 or so of these tickets they’ll break the all time Super Bowl attendance record. Here’s what a Dallas Morning News sports blogger reported on the situation:

The NFL says the outside tickets WILL be counted as Super Bowl attendance, so it’s possible that Super Bowl XLV will break the game’s attendance record if about 15,000 are willing to stand out in whatever weather February 6 brings. The old record was set in 1980 when 103,985 filled the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

Whether or not 15,000 people will loiter around outside Cowboys Stadium throughout the game remains to be seen, but I’m fully confident that Jerry Jones will find a way to sell enough of them–even if its just ‘on paper’ to break the record.

The team is billing it as the ‘Party on the Plaza’ which suggests they’ll bring in some drinks, chicken wings and a DJ from a local radio station to better facilitate a ‘party’ atmosphere. ’Party Plaza’ attendees will also get a commemorative scarf, a program and enjoy entertainment from the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. The Cowboys have confirmed that these tickets will sell for $200 a pop and will initially be offered to Club Seat season ticket holders, who’ll be able to buy up to four tickets. Beyond that, they haven’t released any plans to sell tickets to other ticket holders or the unwashed masses in the general public. My thinking is that if the season ticket holders aren’t buying them up quickly enough they’ll do whatever it takes to get the 15,000 sold needed to break the record.

In any case, don’t be surprise to see some Super Bowl betting props on whether or not the game will break the aforementioned attendance record. With the outside standing room seats counted in the total, it looks all but certain that Jerry Jones will get at least one record out of the game being held in Dallas.