NOW THAT’S A STADIUM

How big is big? Cowboys Stadium answers that question with mind-boggling numbers

By Tony Fay

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:13am

Super Bowl XLV may still be better than 600 days off, but the game will pass a significant milestone this week when its home – Cowboys Stadium in Arlington – holds its first event. Saturday night a capacity crowd is expected to listen to the music of country icon George Strait.

With the new venue ready to welcome its first guests, it again begs the question, just how big is this billion-dollar-plus marvel of a structure?

At the risk of sounding like an architectural Jeff Foxworthy (“You know you’re a big stadium if…”), here’s our attempt at perspective:

  • The Statue of Liberty, including base, could stand upright in the facility when the roof is closed.
  • With a footprint of three million square feet, the stadium is three times bigger than Texas Stadium.
  • The stadium's massive arches terminate at 25-foot-high abutments, which are anchored to concrete walls that extend 71 feet underground.
  • Its 86-foot-high glass exterior is coated in ceramic dots that will make the translucent panels appear to subtly shift hue between blue and gray depending on the position of the sun and angle of view.
  • The plazas at both end zones will function as venues for outdoor concerts, festivals, and special events — each will hold up to 10,000 people.
  • Glass doors at each end of each endzone will retract completely in 18 minutes, creating an opening 120 feet high and 180 feet wide — almost the length of a DC-10.
  • The stadium will boast the world's largest hi-def LED displays — 72-feet high and 160-feet wide. Hanging over midfield, the setup will stretch from 20-yard line to 20-yard line.
  • The giant arches holding up the stadium will measure 1,225 feet from end to end — roughly the length of the Empire State Building.
  • The 410 x 256-foot roof, set on a rack-and-pinion drive system, will retract in just 12 minutes thanks to 128 motors.
  • Over 30,000 pieces of limestone were imported from Canada for the exterior walls.
  • The entire American Airlines Center could fit on the field.