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Football is an industry that has generated billions of dollars in secondary revenue. Besides ticket sales and even television broadcasting rights, the business of football has flooded certain markets with money. The sport has had a positive fiscal influence on everything from sports cards and football cards, to white towels, tailgate accessories, beer sales, auto sales and the post halftime careers of overexposed celebrities. Footballs influence is gigantic in terms of the sheer amount of money spent and generated directly and indirectly. Just look at the construction of a single stadium at the cost of 1.3 billion, that’s billion with a b. The Cowboy Stadium is the worlds most expensive stadium to date and has generated a wealth of design and construction fees across the world.

Think about one aspect of the stadium; the giant t.v. screen. All stadiums have display screens so the crowd can feel right at home and watch the game the way they usually do at home, just in left comfortable seats. In the new stadium used by the Dallas Cowboys the high definition video display is the largest in the world. How large is it? Let’s begin with a little perspective; realtors in the United States refer to anything over 8,000 square feet to be a mansion. At 11,520 square feet the gigantic display is larger then most homes. It reaches nearly 60 yards filling up the space between the twenty yard lines. The display is made up of 10,584,064 LED lights creating crystal clear resolution. It is the largest High-definition display in the world. It has four displays; two facing the end zones and the other two facing the sidelines. It is 60 tons of deadweight and is center hung 90 feet above the playing field in a domed stadium. The smaller displays are still a huge 29 feet high and 51 feet wide. As well as the giant center hung screens there are nearly 3,000 smaller screens hung throughout the stadium. Fans can go sit anywhere in the stadium and get an excellent view of the game without ever having to look down at the field and watch real people playing football. The cost for this display is a mere 40 million dollars.

The stadium itself is an amazing design and has changed the way stadiums will be built in the future, providing the cash is available. One of the nagging problems with most stadiums are the columns that keep the stadium up. This stadium is held up by two giant steel arches giving the fans unobstructed sightlines of the field and display screens from any seat. These arches provide support for the retractable roof and the strength to hang the 60 ton video screen. It is a high tech wonder with real time concession sales reporting, wifi access, and lots of fiber optic cables to support future gadgets not yet invented.

The Dallas Stadium is the most expensive stadium ever built. While it was built with many elaborate luxury boxes, the underlying objective of the project was to provide the average fan with the best a stadium can offer. Thousands of people have put food on the table for their families while drawing a paycheck to help create this stadium.

Filed under: Hobbies on January 1st, 2010