ON THE CLOCK

The build up to North Texas’ first Super Bowl has begun

By Steve Pate

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:04am

This is the story of how one football game, yet to be played, has pulled together an entire region like nothing before. It’s a feel-good story that occurs during a down economy thanks to uplifting people.

Following this Super Sunday in South Florida, the game of all games is coming to North Texas. And people from every nook and cranny of a four-county area are building one very large WELCOME mat. 

It’ll be different from other Super Bowls simply because it’s in North Texas. That alone is unique.

“Other Super Bowl cities have mountains and beaches,” says Brad Sham, voice of the Dallas Cowboys and Chair of the Century in the Making Action Team. “What we have in North Texas is football.”

Let us not kid ourselves. The distance between North Texas’ two largest cities, Dallas and Fort Worth, has always been greater philosophically than the 30 miles of interstate between the two downtowns. And those differences forged other divides throughout North Texas.

Historically, Fort Worth is where the West begins. Well into the 20th Century, West Texas cattlemen still herded their livestock to market in Fort Worth, or put them on trains in Abilene and drove their trucks on over to the Stockyards to do the bidding and selling that would determine their budgets for that year.

Dallas, meanwhile, had one notable cattle drive in its history. Dallas was never cowboy; East Texas farmers gravitated more to Dallas. It was also slick, aggressive, on the move, big on banking and clothing and building skyward and outward.

Smack in the middle of the two cities is Arlington, where that city and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones constructed the latest Jaw-Dropping Wonder of the World. The new Cowboys Stadium spearheaded the Super Bowl bid for 2011. And when the NFL made its selection, the league cited an entire four-country area to host Super Bowl XLV.

Not Dallas. Not Arlington or Fort Worth. But all of North Texas — from Dallas to Collin to Denton to Tarrant counties — will put on the region’s first-ever Super Bowl come February 6, 2011.

During construction of the stadium, Jones sought out Hall of Famer Roger Staubach and asked if he would put together a bid committee. When that bid was secured, Staubach and others turned to Bill Lively to head up the day-to-day operations as President & CEO of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee.

And from the very outset of 2010, as all the many pieces of a Host Committee were put together, Lively and Staubach and the others who climbed aboard early focused on one driving mission — to unite North Texas like never before. And to bond it so strongly that the region would remain united even after the Super Bowl.

“What will be here,” Lively has asked in more than one setting to numerous groups, “when the lights of the stadium dim?”

Now, a full year into the project, Lively still emphasizes, “There was no track record of working together throughout this region and doing anything significant, except building an airport 35 years ago.

“So this little football game in 2011 is the catalyst to transform our region forever.”

Throughout 2010, Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief was fond of saying, “Let’s blur the boundary lines between cities and counties.”

A whirlwind year still remains, and the positive vibes just keep building.

“We have the finest facility in the world,” Staubach says. “We love football. And we have a spirit amongst ourselves that we’re going to convey that we really give a darn about making sure we do the right things for Super Bowl XLV.”

Staubach adds, “We can’t get complacent because the real work is ahead, but a lot of work has been done and is being done to allow us to do the real work in a very special way. And to do it right.”

A glimpse of what’s gone on so far:

  • SPONSORSHIPS, FUND-RAISING: The Host Committee has generated $14 million in confirmed sponsorships, grants and contracted revenues, although history shows donations pick up in the months leading up to a Super Bowl because the game is more imminent then. Says Lively, “To have raised $14 million in total revenues in this economy, with no track record and an infrastructure that became operative in January 2009, is really very remarkable.”
  • TRANSPORTATION: Passenger rail between Dallas and Fort Worth will be introduced for Super Bowl Sunday, with two tracks running continuously from downtown Fort Worth to downtown Dallas and stopping at Cowboys Stadium. Michael Morris of the Transportation Action Team estimates 25,000-30,000 fans will use the system on Game Day.
  • GREATEST MOMENTS: Fans will vote throughout 2010 for the Top 100 football memories in North Texas history. The Host Committee’s Century In The Making Action Team, chaired by Sham, comprised a list of 250 memorable events. Fans will now rank the top 100 with balloting online and throughout North Texas.
  • KICK-OFF CONCERT SERIES: The Host Committee will stage three music concerts in 2010 with Super Bowl ties. Faith Hill will perform in Fort Worth’s Bass Peformance Hall on March 6; Sting will play Dallas’ new AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Winspear Opera House on May 22; and, Cowboys Stadium will stage a yet-to-be-announced star for the grand finale the week that the NFL’s 2010 regular season kicks off. Never before has a Host Committee started its Super Bowl festivities an entire year out leading up to the Game.
  • SLANT 45 FOR CHILDREN: The Host Committee and Big Thought, a Dallas-based non-profit organization that emphasizes “making imagination a part of everyday learning”, will engage over 20,000 elementary school students in over 45,000 hours of community service. SLANT 45 stands for “Service Learning Adventures in North Texas” for Super Bowl XLV. With an Action Team chaired by former Cowboy Daryl Johnston, SLANT 45 is the largest education initiative ever undertaken by a Super Bowl Host Committee. Participation in the program marks the first time that five area chapters of the Junior League and The Links, Inc. have united for one project.
  • EMERGING BUSINESS PROGRAM: A remarkable 646 local business owners attended the first of three area Emerging Business workshops in Fort Worth in November 2009. The NFL-sponsored program educates minority- and women-owned businesses on how to participate in the Super Bowl as a business. Two more workshops are planned in Dallas and Arlington in the coming year.
  • TASTE OF THE NFL: Another of the NFL’s most prized Super Bowl events, Taste of the NFL will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Proceeds will be donated to food banks in Dallas and Tarrant counties and 31 other NFL cities, assuring the profits go to the needy.
  • COUNCIL OF MAYORS: The Host Committee’s Council of Mayors is historic, bringing all mayors of North Texas together for one cause for the first time. Lively refers to the mayors as the Game’s “messengers who get the word out into their communities”.
  • YOUTH EDUCATION TOWN (YET): Representing the Gene and Jerry Jones Family Arlington Youth Foundation, the Jones family, owners of the Cowboys, has made a $1 million grant (to be matched by the NFL) for a Youth Education Town (YET) that will remain a lasting legacy.

The above activity merely skims the surface of the past year in North Texas. Tara Green, the Host Committee’s VP & COO, and Kit Sawers, VP/Special Events, and so many others have worked tirelessly, with no blueprint to rely on. This is all new to North Texas.

“We are farther along than I thought we would be a year out,” Green says, “and it’s already bigger than I thought it would be a year out.”

Says Larry McCoy, the Host Committee’s Chief Financial Officer, “Just accomplishing the NFL’s bid commitment can seem quite daunting at times. But we’ve got a region that is so enthusiastic about the opportunity of having a Super Bowl.

“People see the bigger picture. They see what the first-ever Super Bowl means to North Texas.”

They see it for Dallas, for Fort Worth, for Arlington, Irving, Plano, Flower Mound, all of those towns and suburbs and communities that form the pretty little lights across the North Texas skyline. They are all uniting under one star, preparing for Super Bowl XLV.

The boundaries have been blurred.