AT&T Stadium Video Board
The MMQB presents NFL 95, a special project running through mid-July detailing 95 artifacts that tell the story of the NFL, as the league prepares to enter its 95th season. See the entire series here.
Leave it to Jerry Jones to build something that proves everything really is bigger in Texas.
The billion-dollar AT&T Stadium, which opened in 2009 as Cowboys Stadium, resembles a palatial spaceship dropped into Arlington, a city between Dallas and Fort Worth. No feature represents the structure’s grandiosity more than the 160-foot long HD video board suspended over the center of the playing field. It was Guinness World Record-size at the time of its construction, and though two other venues have since unveiled larger ones, the Cowboys owner’s video board is still the most famous. The giant flashing display is part of the show at “Jerry’s World” and has already been struck by two punts during preseason games.
Bigger, though, isn’t always better. Super Bowl XLV, intended to be the showcase for the Cowboys’ mansion, instead turned calamitous—the incompletion of temporary seating areas left 400 fans without seats, and falling ice outside the stadium injured six people two days before the game. Most disappointing for the Cowboys, they have played only one playoff game in the stadium in the five seasons after its opening—a rut of mediocrity unbecoming of the flashy digs.
— Jenny Vrentas
