As the conundrum presented by the oversized video board hanging 90 feet over the floor of the new Cowboys Stadium continues to hover over the NFL news like, well, an oversized video board hanging 90 feet over the floor of the new Cowboys Stadium, there’s a growing feeling that the whole thing is about one thing.
Promoting the new Cowboys Stadium.
And, in turn, the Dallas Cowboys.
Amid reports that the league’s Competition Committee will take up during a Tuesday conference call the thorny problem presented by punts careening off the structure that covers 60 yards of the field, from one 20 to the other, there’s some evidence that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones plans to ultimately move the thing higher.
After milking the issue for all the ink it’ll spill.
Per News 8 in Austin, the band U2 already plans to pay the $2 million or so necessary to move the video board for an October concert, so that the group’s massive stage will fit in Cowboys Stadium.
But there Jones is, quoted on the front page of Tuesday’s USA Today sports section, again articulating resistance to a move that he apparently realizes is inevitable. “I’m very comfortable that our height on our scoreboard is OK,” Jones says.
That said, there’s a chance that Jones will remain defiant, not because the thing can’t be moved, but because he prefers to watch the video board from the owner’s suite at its intended height. Indeed, a team spokesman recently said that, after the U2 concert, the video board will be returned to its current position.
Regardless of whether Jones will draw a line in the sand on this one, the reality is that the problem has focused plenty of attention on his brand new North Texas Football Cathedral.
Though some might think the attention isn’t exactly good attention, Jones himself has acknowledged in the past that any opportunity to promote the brand is a good thing, regardless of whether it comes via a subject that some might regard as embarrassing.