The Santa Clara traffic problems have spread to Arlington. Literally.
Via Jori Epstein of the Dallas Morning News, an accident on I-30 coupled with rush-hour traffic caused AT&T Stadium to fill up more slowly than usual.
“A Thursday crowd, just by the nature of our traffic situation, we knew and will always be late seating,” owner Jerry Jones said regarding the late-arriving throng. “That crowd filled in really good out there. Those seats filled up.”
The team announced official attendance to be 91,712. But there’s a difference between the number of tickets sold and the number of butts in seats. With the Cowboys struggling of late, it’s possible that plenty of tickets bought and paid for months ago went unused.
Keep that dynamic in mind when assessing reports regarding only small reductions in “attendance” this year across the NFL. It’s one thing for ticket sales to be down by only a percentage point or two; the bigger problem is whether people are using those tickets.
Apart from the creation of a photo album that can be co-opted by politicians to create the impression that the NFL is failing (even if it isn’t), not having people who paid for tickets actually show up for the game results in fewer transactions involving overpriced food, beverages, and merchandise.