On Thursday, NFL executive V.P. of business ventures and Chief Financial Officer Eric Grubman acknowledged that the Cowboys hired the contractor that was supposed to install temporary seating that ultimately wasn’t installed in time for Super Bowl XLV.
Grubman also addressed whether the Cowboys hoped to break the single-game attendance record.
Here’s the excerpt.
PFT: Was it a priority for Jerry Jones and the Cowboys to break that record?
EG: You’ll have to ask the Cowboys.
PFT: But if you had been working with the Cowboys and Jerry Jones leading up to the game and I assume you did, did you pick up on anything from those communications that it was an issue, a desire for them to break the record of 103,985?
EG: Yes, I think they were very interested in breaking the record.
It was good that Grubman answered the follow-up question, because if we’d asked the Cowboys the Cowboys would have said nothing.
“The Cowboys are deferring all comments to the NFL,” team P.R. subsequently told Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal.
It’s not a bad approach for the Cowboys, since the league is claiming full responsibility for the blunder. Even if the blunder has the Cowboys’ fingerprints all over it.