What happened the last time Arlington hosted a Super Bowl?

In 2011, Ben Roethlisberger was looking for his third Super Bowl title with the Steelers, as he prepared to face off with the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl 45 at AT&T Stadium. Usher performed during the halftime show.

That setup sounds eerily familiar to this year’s Super Bowl. Patrick Mahomes searching for his third Super Bowl title against the San Francisco 49ers and Usher, once again, set to perform at the halftime of the Super Bowl.

However, NFL fans and the league hope Super Bowl 58 won’t follow Super Bowl 45’s example as “perhaps the worst [Super Bowl] in NFL history.”

What made Super Bowl 45 so disastrous?

It started with a winter storm that covered the Dallas-Fort Worth area with ice, snow and windchill readings that hit the subzero mark, causing the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to be temporarily shut down.

The bad weather also led to blackouts. Many fans were injured when large sheets of ice fell off the roof of AT&T Stadium.

All of these mishaps caused Sports Illustrated writer Peter King to ridicule the area on X, which was then called Twitter.

“I’m telling you: I-30 between Dallas- Fort Worth is a plow-less, snow-windswept moonscape. This is officially a debacle.” Jim Rome said “6 inches of snow? Really, Dallas? Good luck getting another Super Bowl.”

Unfortunately, the mishaps continued leading up to the day of the Super Bowl when a shortage of seats left hundreds of fans who had bought tickets out in the cold.

The shortage of seats happened because the stadium had installed an additional 15,000 seats in several sections to increase capacity.

However, the seats were installed late, in part due to the inclement weather, and were not able to be inspected by the fire marshal in time and caused paying fans to be turned away.

The NFL offered to pay some of these fans three times the value of their seats and pay for airfare and travel to a future Super Bowl in response to the seating debacle.

This did not please all the fans, some of whom sued the NFL.

Seven of the fans who sued were awarded $76,000 from a jury in Texas that found the NFL violated its ticket contract with the fans.

These issues partly overshadowed a thrilling game that saw the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-25, with Aaron Rogers winning his first Super Bowl and Super Bowl MVP.

AT&T Stadium hasn’t been chosen to host another Super Bowl since.

This story was originally published February 9, 2024 at 11:40 AM.

Lawrence Dow

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Lawrence Dow is a digital sports reporter from Philadelphia. He graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from USC. He’s passionate about movies and is always looking for a great book. He covers the Texas Rangers and other sports.