AND THEY’RE OFF!

The North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee kicks it into high gear

By Steve Pate

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:31am

FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS: Students from the Fort Worth ISD, Arlington ISD and Dallas ISD helped (L-R) Aikman, Mayor Mike Moncrief of Forth Worth, Robert Cluck of Arlington, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway of Dallas and Roger Staubach announce the Host City designations.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. The North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee is in full throttle, cranked up and running in a city near you.

The largest host committee in Super Bowl history held its first meeting of the expanded group Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the Arlington Convention Center. That spirited function was followed two days later by an overflow media luncheon at the Fort Worth Club.

Strong, positive vibrations dominated both events, as did a determined vow from committee members that the 2011 Super Bowl, coming to the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington, will unite the entire North Texas community unlike anything anyone in the region has ever seen before.

“It’s almost like being in the huddle with these guys,” said Fort Worth mayor Mike Moncrief. “It’s exciting.”

The huddle is quite large and includes political leaders and influential business people and fans not only from the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth and Arlington, but from all over Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties.

Game Day might still be two years away, but the host committee’s focus has dramatically shifted from dreams of acquiring the bid to very real and ambitious planning.
Rather than make the experience its typical 8-to-10-day extravaganza, the North Texas Host Committee will put on major events throughout an entire year.

It all starts with a March 2010 concert featuring an as-yet-named star performing at Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall.

Concerts will follow in May at Dallas’ Winspear Opera House and in September at the new stadium in Arlington. Events around North Texas will continue all the way up to the kick-off of Super Bowl XLV on Feb. 6, 2011.

The reason behind the long countdown?

"To cast the eyes of the country and the world on this region,” explained Bill Lively, committee president and CEO.

Perhaps at no time in regional history has so much teamwork been demanded from so many facets of North Texas.

Troy Aikman, Cowboys Hall of Fame quarterback and a most active member of the committee, explains the united front in this way:

“This isn’t a Dallas event; this isn’t a Fort Worth event; it’s not an Arlington event. This is a North Texas event. And I think the challenge is being able to pull that off because there’s a tendency for everybody to think, ‘Hey, I should get more.’

“That thinking occurs with sports teams. It happens with businesses. And it happens within cities. And I think the challenge for us when all is said and done is that

Mayor Moncrief, Arlington Mayor (Robert) Cluck and Dallas Mayor (Tom) Leppert, and all the other people involved, can look at it and say, ‘Wow, that was really great.

What a great thing for Fort Worth. What a great thing for Arlington. What a great thing for Dallas.

“And if we all say that, what a great thing for the region of North Texas.”

Fort Worth is the Host City for the American Football Conference (AFC) champions, and Dallas will host the National Football Conference (NFC) champs. The AFC team will stay at the Omni Hotel in Fort Worth and will practice at Texas Christian University’s stadium. The NFC winner will bed down at Las Colinas’ Omni Mandalay Hotel and practice at the Dallas Cowboys’ Valley Ranch facilities.

Aikman announced at the Arlington event that the North Texas committee has already received eight $1-million guaranteed sponsorships and one $1 million grant—seven more $1 million sponsorships and grants than any previous Super Bowl. The old record of two $1 million sponsors had been held by the Detroit Host Committee for the Super Bowl staged at Ford Field in 2006.

But Lively & Crew promise this is only the beginning. More meetings are already planned for the coming weeks, with an overall goal of signing on 15 $1 million sponsorships.

Hall of Famer Roger Staubach, the committee chair, told the Fort Worth crowd, “You look around this room, and we’re on the right track… We really want to go into that final year and put the icing on the cake—do the things, not just scrambling around worrying about the budget and all those other activities, but make that final year extra special.”

If special is what this is all about, the first two functions in late February certainly kicked the proverbial football right between the goal posts.