STEPPING STONES

No region gets an event like the Super Bowl without a few dress rehearsals. Here are the 11 key events that helped set the stage for XLV.

By Tony Fay

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:23am

STOP AND GO: A Full TMS is a good lesson in traffic flow.

SKATING THE CUP: Mike Modano takes Lord Stanley for a whirl

One of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee’s slogans is “A Century in the Making.” That’s in reference to the fact that the first big football game held in the region was the 1912 Texas-OU showdown.

But from the standpoint of handling large international events and being savvy enough to fully maximize the region’s time on the world stage, North Texas is much more of a newbie. With the notable exceptions of the Cotton Bowl and the Red River Rivalry, the region’s history of staging big, complex sporting events really dates back to the era of Bump Wills, Mr. Peppermint and the Von Erichs (you know what I mean North Texas lifers).

Here are 11 key events that have set the stage for hosting Super Bowl XLV:

1973 NFL PRO BOWL
Date: Jan. 21, 1973
Place: Texas Stadium
Famous Faces: Landry, Mean Joe and the Juice
Why You Should Care: Admit it, you thought the Pro Bowl had always been played in Hawaii. Actually the '73 game marked the first time since 1942 for the contest to be played away from the L.A. Coliseum. Steelers Head Coach Chuck Noll once again got the better of Tom Landry as the AFC downed the NFC, 33-28. O.J. Simpson earned MVP honors. The game was hailed a success, but it would be better than a decade before the region would host another large national event not played in the Cotton Bowl.

1984 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
Date: Aug. 20-23, 1984
Place: Reunion Arena
Famous Faces: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
Why You Should Care: Politics is kind of a sport, right? Right? At the ’84 Republican Convention, incumbent President Ronald Reagan and his Veep, George H.W. Bush, took home their party’s nomination. They’d rout Walter Mondale in the general election later that fall to win the championship… er, Presidency. The real winner was North Texas, though, which showcased its early-80s boon to the world. While images of the television show “Dallas” and memories of the Grassy Knoll weren’t totally dispelled, the event did cause many to re-evaluate what at the time was America’s fastest growing region.

1986 NBA ALL-STAR GAME
Date: Feb. 9, 1986
Place: Reunion Arena
Famous Faces: Magic, Bird, Kareem and… Spud?
Why You Should Care: The game was a good one (won by the East 139-132), but it definitely took a back seat to All-Star Saturday. Those festivities were highlighted by the first-ever three-point shootout, won in style by Larry Bird, and maybe the most famous dunk contest ever. In that rim-rattling showdown, 5-7 Anthony “Spud” Webb, who played for Atlanta but hailed from Dallas, electrified his hometown crowd by knocking off his teammate Dominique Wilkins in the mono e mono finale.  Rising even higher than Webb was Reunion Arena, which was at its zenith as a state-of-the-art facility (Yes, even topping that high-water mark set by the ’85 Phil Collins concert video filmed there.)

1986 NCAA FINAL FOUR
Date: March 29-31, 1986
Place: Reunion Arena
Famous Faces: Coach K and Bill Packer
Why You Should Care: Long before there was Jim Nance and One Shining Moment, there was “Never Nervous” Pervis Ellison.  Ellison was the tourney’s MOP, leading the Louisville Cardinals to their second title in seven seasons, but this particular Final Four gave birth to a different dynasty. It marked the first Final Four for Duke under the leadership of then 39-year-old Mike Krzyzewski. The one-two punch of the Final Four and NBA All-Star Weekend just a month apart caused a spike in the local convention business, helping the region fight through the late ‘80s oil bust. Economic impact was suddenly more than just an esoteric theory.

1994 FIFA WORLD CUP
Date: June 17-July 9
Place: The Cotton Bowl
Famous Faces: The world’s greatest soccer players not named Tatu
Why You Should Care: The Cotton Bowl hosted seven matches in the ’94 World Cup, but, more importantly, it was home to the International Broadcast Center for the entire tourney. That meant journalists from over 200 countries spent nearly two months eating our fajitas, drinking our margaritas and generally saying, “North Texas… cool.” It was the first large-scale international sporting event held in the area, and 15 years later still provides the most detailed roadmap for planners of Super Bowl XLV.

1995 MLB ALL-STAR GAME
Date: July 11, 1995
Place: The Ballpark in Arlington
Famous Faces: Barry Bonds, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn and Junior Griffey
Why You Should Care: Bit-o-trivia: The game was the first and only All-Star outing hosted by the Rangers but not the first hosted by the franchise – the team hosted the ’62 and ’69 games as the Washington Senators. Hot off the heels of the World Cup, the All-Star high left many North Texas leaders dreaming about a 2012 Olympiad – a push that fizzled, but would set the stage in many ways for a successful Super Bid.

FIRST RACE AT TMS
Date: April 3, 1996
Place: Texas Motor Speedway
Famous Faces: No Lightning McQueen but plenty of NASCAR greats
Why You Should Care: With crowds near 200,000 and a large RV zone so heavily populated it could have been issued electoral votes, the Speedway provided a crash (no pun intended) course on how to handle traffic flow and solve parking challenges.

1999-2000 NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS
Date: June 1999, June 2000
Place: Reunion Arena
Famous Faces: Modano, Hull-y and Lord Stanley’s Cup
Significance: The Stars skated the Cup in ’99, knocking off the Sabres, before seeing the road to repeat fall just short the following spring. These back-to-back runs exposed the region to a large international audience and allowed North Texas to reinvent itself as a hockey hotbed. The notion of the region as one of the top sports markets in the world firmly takes hold.

2004 BREEDERS’ CUP
Date: October 30, 2004
Place: Lonestar Park
Famous (Long) Faces: Horses
Why You Should Care: No other event in the history of the region has brought in this many deep-pocketed sports aficionados.  Private planes lined up at D/FW like cabs at a taxi stand, and there wasn’t a high-end hotel room, spa appointment or tee-time to be had. It tested the entire local hospitality industry and caused many vendors to dream about Super-sizing the entire experience.

2006 NBA FINALS
Date: June 8-20, 2006
Place: American Airlines Center
Famous Faces: Dirk, Shaq and D. Wade
Significance: MFFLs are still stinging over the loss by the heavily favored Mavs, who led the series 2-0 before dropping the final four games. But with a young, hip billionaire owner, a state-of-the-art arena and the glitzy new Victory Park, the region’s image took a big bump among many of the 2,000 credentialed media, especially among the large international contingent that beamed images of the new North Texas back to 45 countries.

2007 NHL ALL-STAR GAME
Date: Jan. 24, 2007
Place: American Airlines Center
Famous Faces: Sidney Crosby
Why You Should Care: The game marked the first NHL All-Star Game since 2004 (thanks to the lockout and subsequent Olympics) and was the last major sporting event hosted by the region prior to the submitting the Super Bowl bid. Hiccups could have been disastrous. Luckily there were none. The West won 12-9, btw.