DALLAS – Welcome to Big D, Packers and Steelers.
Y’all are in for a good ol’ time.
The first Super Bowl in North Texas is going to be a big, gaudy celebration of excess, just like the stadium where the game will be played. So it’s great that two teams with large, loyal fan bases will be the stars of the show.
Bring all the Cheeseheads and Terrible Towels you want. Big as Cowboys Stadium is, there will be room for them all – more than 100,000, counting folks who’ll pay $200 to hang out around the building and watch on TVs. Plenty of people inside will be watching on TV, too, unable to pry their eyes from the gargantuan video boards.
This game should be a heck of a sight: two proud franchises led by quality quarterbacks and dazzling defenses.
The Steelers are in the Super Bowl for the eighth time overall, matching the Cowboys for the most appearances. Pittsburgh already has the most titles with six. That includes a pair of tight wins over Dallas teams led by Roger Staubach, who happens to be the chairman of the committee that planned this game.
Good thing he doesn’t hold a grudge.
“The Steelers fans, you’ve got to kind of like them, as far as their dedication,” Staubach said last week.
Roethlisberger will be looking for his third Super Bowl title, which would put him behind only Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw, who each won four. Among those Roethlisberger would tie with ring No. 3 is another former Cowboys great, Troy Aikman, who is No. 2 to Staubach on the game’s executive committee and who will be broadcasting the game on Fox.
All Super Bowls are a huge deal, especially when a city or stadium is hosting for the first time. Well, this time, you’ve also got to remember that we do things bigger in Texas – like the host committee’s budget coming in around $40 million, making the roughly $16 million spent last year in Miami look like chicken feed.
Things are spread out down here, too. The Steelers are staying in Fort Worth, the Packers in Irving and all media events will be in Dallas. Oh, yeah, the game itself is in Arlington. That’s why this is technically called the North Texas Super Bowl.
