Super Bowl XLV - Attendance

Attendance

Cowboys Stadium installed 15,000 temporary seats and utilized its standing room to increase its capacity to over 105,000 fans. If the stadium had been filled to capacity (its record for an NFL game is 105,121 spectators), it would have set a record for Super Bowl attendance, breaking the previous record of 103,985 fans for Super Bowl XIV in the Rose Bowl; however the actual attendance of 103,219 fell 766 fans short. League officials had indicated that they would also count spectators watching the game on large television screens from outside the stadium in the tally, which generally is not allowed in official attendance counts.

Due to numerous delays, 1,250 temporary seats weren't ready in time for the game. According to a police officer standing near the affected area, the seats hadn't been installed in time for the fire marshal to inspect them. The NFL scrambled almost until kickoff to find replacement seats. Eventually, 850 fans in four sections were relocated, while 400 fans in two sections were given a refund equivalent to three times the face value of their ticket. The latter set of fans were later offered the chance to watch the game on monitors in the North Field Club behind the Steelers bench, but would still get the triple refund. Some of these fans were still upset, since they had spent thousands on airfare and hotels. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that when the league decided to relocate the 850 fans, it lost any shot of setting the attendance record.

The NFL subsequently offered affected fans a ticket to the next Super Bowl in addition to the refund. It also offered fans the option of a ticket to any future Super Bowl, along with round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations. However, this wasn't enough to mollify several fans, who on February 9 filed a $5 million class-action lawsuit against the NFL, the Cowboys and Jones. In addition to Steelers and Packers fans left without seats, the suit includes Cowboys fans who paid $100,000 for personal seat licenses, only to have to watch the Super Bowl in metal folding chairs without a view of the stadium's giant video replay board. The NFL at first offered $2,400 to fans who did not receive a replacement seat, but later offered tickets to a future Super Bowl with airfare and hotels included.