Gold Cup: México vs. Haiti at Cowboys Stadium

This past Sunday I was fortunate enough to attend the very first sporting event at the new billion dollar + Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. No, it wasn't a Dallas Cowboys' football game. The first sporting event was a SOCCER game of all things. That this event is part of the regular CONCACAF Gold Cup calendar and fell on a date in July long before the first preseason game was a stroke of luck. But the genius of it was that it was a México game...which guaranteed a sell-out crowd to show off the new stadium to the Metroplex media. There were an impressive 82,252 people at this event.

All of this would be enough. But there was also a Texas Rangers' game that same night across the way from the sparkling Cowboys Stadium at the Ballpark in Arlington. (Google Maps still has it listed as "Ameriquest Field" - someone should e-mail Google that Ameriquest and the rest of their bad loan/subprime mortgage ilk are long gone). So this was an ideal test of the traffic flow for Arlington city officials. Our group drove from the University of Texas at Dallas (in lovely Richardson, Texas). Traffic was pretty smooth flowing. We arrived and parked in Lot 13 in fairly short order. We took a group of students from México who are studying this summer at UTD. For most of them it was their first chance to see their Mexican National Team. So naturally they were thrilled. They wore their "selección" jerseys, painted their faces and proudly sang the Mexican National Anthem.

I took my fancy Nikon camera to document the event. I thought I might go around the concourse to get a real sense of this new landmark stadium. But unfortunately, there's no way to go completely around the stadium like we used to in Texas Stadium. Our tickets were in Section 244 which can only be accessed by entering the stadium through Gate C.

July in Texas was also a good chance to sample the indoor air conditioning of this facility. In the heat of the summer, it held up alright. Mind you, it's not chilly like a typical Dallas shopping mall. But it was kept around 80-85 degrees pretty consistently. It still beats a preseason game at Texas Stadium in August any day.

Beers are $7. Parking was $25. (Although I understand that parking lots for Cowboys' games will cost more like $40). The tickets we bought were 2nd lower balcony and cost $29. Standing Room Only tickets were $20.

As for the structure itself, Cowboys Stadium is very impressive. It's no Bird's Nest, of course. But it's sleek, modern, and shiny. It looms on Tom Landry Highway like some heaping half of the Star Wars Death Star. I imagined what went through the minds of the Haitian National Team as they approached the enormity and grandeur of it as if they weren't anxious enough playing the mighty Mexican National Team.

Mexico's 2nd team dominated Haiti 4-0. So the Mexican fans in the 2nd half of the game spent most of their time thinking up chants to sing together, perfecting the Mexican wave and swelling with pride. One of them sitting behind me thought I was a reporter (thanks to the fancy Nikon around my neck, no doubt) and told me that he was one of the electricians who worked on the stadium. It gave him a great sense of pride to work on this great stadium but that night he was overwhelmed sharing that pride with so many countrymen.