Controversy in the New Cowboys Stadium
Throughout the United States, the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys are symbols of tradition, champions, and money.
These two American giants don’t only have this in common. They both also moved to new and much more spectacular stadiums. But the most striking similarity between these two stadiums that both cost over one billion dollars each, is that they are both facing criticism and questioning concerning structural errors.
The Yankees realized that the amount of homeruns in their new stadium increased dramatically. The reason for this, as outlined by AccuWeather back in June, was that the shape and height of the right field wall allowed for more home runs. 20% of the home runs scored would not have been home runs in the old stadium.
The new home of the Cowboys has only been used for concerts and soccer games. But it wasn’t until last Friday that the first NFL game was disrupted by a slight miscalculation in architectural planning.
The television screen located in the new Cowboys Stadium is considered to be the largest high definition screen in the world, as it spans a very large part of the field. On Friday’s game, a punt by Tennessee Titans kicker A.J. Trapasso sent the ball straight into the scoreboard. The punt bounced backwards and the play was replayed.
Even befote the preseason NFL game kicked off, kickers from both teams placed around kicking the screen.
Officials ruled the play a “do-over”. This is definitely something new because such a thing had never happened before and nothing exists in the rulebook covering footballs hitting a TV screen.
There doesn’t seem to be an easy solution to this problem. Raising the screen could affect the fans’ view, and it could cost a fortune to fix this “slight” miscalculation.
