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ARLINGTON — No more than 10,000 standing-room-only tickets should be sold at future Dallas Cowboys games, after police briefly lost control of an unruly crowd outside Cowboys Stadium on Sunday night just before the inaugural regular-season home game, Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck told the Star-Telegram on Monday.
The team sold nearly 30,000 Party Passes to Sunday’s historic game against the New York Giants — creating a total crowd of 105,121 that broke the National Football League’s regular-season record. Only about 78,000 of those fans had seats either in the stadium or in a suite, and the others were left to find space in the standing areas behind both end zones and in the outdoor plazas where large video screens were set up. An undetermined number of patrons were even turned away at the gate, and stadium employees struggled to maintain order.As people who had bought the $29 Party Passes began to crowd into the three levels of space behind each end zone, police and fire officials put up pedestrian barricades outside the stadium and tried to restrict access to just a few fans at a time, trying to ensure that there was enough standing room inside for all. But as kickoff approached, and a loud fanfare arose from inside the stadium as the retractable roof and 120-foot-tall end zone glass walls opened, Party Pass fans became frustrated, thinking that the $1.2 billion stadium had been oversold and that they would be left out of the festivities.A crush of fans began forcing their way to the barricades. Police, concerned that fans would be injured or trampled, opted to remove the barricades and let the crowd swarm in.'Bottles flying’"They put up barricades and the people ignored them. There [were] beer bottles flying around and a lot of pushing and shoving," Cluck told the Star-Telegram. "I don’t think we want to see a repeat of that," he said.Cluck said he asked Cowboys officials Monday to limit Party Pass sales to 10,000 per game, or roughly 5,000 people for each end zone. Team officials said that they are working with Cluck to set new limits, but that no agreement had been reached as of late Monday.Cowboys officials did not return a call Monday afternoon seeking additional comment, but earlier in the day team spokesman Brett Daniels said he didn’t expect such a large standing-room-only crowd in future games.Only about 7,500 Party Pass tickets have been sold for the next home game Monday night against the Carolina Panthers, Daniels said."Obviously it was a historic night for the franchise," Daniels said. "We wanted for as many fans as possible to experience that night. I don’t see that being replicated necessarily week in and out."The official capacity of Cowboys Stadium as set by the Arlington fire marshal is 111,000 people, including standing room, Cluck said. However, only seating and suite areas are used to determine whether an event is a sellout, officials said.Earlier Monday, Arlington police acknowledged that things grew tense between crowd-control officers and a few dozen of the 30,000 Party Pass fans who wanted a better view of the field Sunday night.
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