Beginning of the End for the Cotton Bowl
Sep 17
Anyone who is a fan of College football knows about the Cotton Bowl located in Fair Park near downtown Dallas. Probably because it hosts one of the biggest college football games every year, no not the AT&T Cotton Bowl, but the Red River Shootout between The University of Texas and The University of Oklahoma. Well if you live in Dallas then you know the Cotton Bowl can illicit some pretty strong emotions about the some of the decisions made by the Dallas City Council in the past…
It all started a few years ago when Jerry Jones decided that it was time for the Dallas Cowboys to build a new home that was more befitting of “America’s Team”. One that would provide a state of the art experience for one of the largest fan bases in all of pro sports. In Texas football is king and something about watching a game in Texas Stadium just doesn’t do it for most fans anymore. Don’t get me wrong I love Texas Stadium because of it’s rich history, but it just isn’t the type of place fans want to spend money to go too anymore. Jerry started talks with the city of Dallas to build a new stadium in Dallas city limits. After months of talks the city of Dallas said they didn’t want to pay it’s part ($300 million dollars) to build the stadium in Dallas. Jerry being the great business man that he is, went to the city of Arlington to see if they would be interested in being the new home of the Dallas Cowboys. Arlington was willing to do anything to steal the Cowboys away from the city of Dallas because they know that “America’s Team” + New Stadium = $$$$ for their city. Construction is set to be completed on the stadium in Arlington less than a year from now.
This brings me to my point; the cities failure to land the Cowboy’s new stadium essentially marked the death of the Cotton Bowl. Since the start of construction of the new stadium in Arlington the Cotton Bowl as lost, of all things, the “Cotton Bowl”. Starting in 2010 the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic will be in Jerry’s new stadium in Arlington. The AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic used to be one of the biggest bowls in all of college football until the creation of the Bowl Championship Series. It was left out because the stadium didn’t hold enough people, it was old and outdated, and did not offer same type of amenities of other stadiums. In order for the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic to return to national prominence it needed a face lift and the new Cowboy’s stadium could provide that, whereas the Cotton Bowl could not.
Today the city of Dallas will reveal the $57 million dollar renovation of the Cotton Bowl (link). Apparently the city council thought it could spend some money making improvements to the stadium and that would allow them to bring in some “major” college football games. Well so far they are running slightly behind Jerry World in that department.
Jerry World
AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic
Super Bowl
Notre Dame and Arizona State
A&M vs. Arkansas
Big XII Title Game
Cotton Bowl
University of Texas vs. University of Oklahoma
Prairie View A&M University vs. Grambling State University
Texas A&M University-Commerce vs. East Central University
Texas Southern vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff
What does all this tell me? Today is the beginning of the end for the Cotton Bowl.
