So it's like this. Bill Lively, president and CEO of the North Texas Super Bowl 45 Host Committee, has this insane amount of money to raise. Like, $30 million.
And he and the rest of the committee members have been hitting the bricks for several months now. And they're really leaving no wealthy person unturned. Because $30 million is a lot of money. I know, because I have nowhere near $30 million.
Now, before I talk about the Super Bowl, I need to tell a story. A few years ago, I was working at an IPTV company that was trying to branch out to cover sports (for some reason) and entertainment in addition to the stock market. I was charged with getting our newly-minted sports guy credentials with the various teams.
Things went fairly well until I tried the Cowboys. First I was told he could go to the weekly press conferences. So he did. I tried to get him credentialed for games, but was told since we were "only Internet," there wasn't a chance in hell.
Not long after that, Cowboys PR head honcho Rich Dalrymple himself kicked our sports guy and camera guy out of one of those weekly press conferences. In dramatic fashion.
So I was highly impressed when I got an e-mail a couple weeks ago, asking if I'd be interested - as a blogger (and an independent one, at that) - in attending a meeting with Lively and a few other bloggers.
So basically, a sea change in less than four years brought me to Hully & Mo's tonight, where I learned that while most cities have a week of activities before the Super Bowl, the North Texas version will have a year of activities, and that (combined with Super Bowl itself) will require upwards of $30M.
And Lively joined the effort back when the monolithic Cowboys Stadium was still just conceptual drawings. And not only was he charged with raising the money, but also with unifying several towns and counties in the effort.
"The franchise is the Dallas Cowboys. The stadium is in Arlington," Lively explained. "The host committee is North Texas."
And that committee, Lively added, saw the Super Bowl as "an opportunity of a lifetime to teach a region to work together." Something that hasn't been done since the DFW airport, he said.
"The stadium is on the 50-yard line of I-35," he said.
One of the standing action committees, he said, was a council of mayors. There are 114 mayors on the committee - a feat when you consider that until last year's Super Bowl, the four big city mayors hadn't ever attended an event together.
The committee has planned an entire year of events leading up to the big game, starting with a Faith Hill concert on March 6 at Bass Hall in Fort Worth (Sting will perform at the Winspear May 22). There will be an opportunity for area sports writers to help compile a list of 250 greatest moments in sports history in the region, which will then be winnowed down to 100 by a public vote.
In addition, the committee has a list of things it must do to fulfill its contractual obligations to the NFL. There is another list, Lively said, "of things we don't have to do, but we should do."
That includes educational service programs like SLANT 45, chaired by former Pres. George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush. It includes the yet-to-be announced Youth Education Town Center. Another town presented Lively with an idea today, he said, that if it ends up getting fleshed out, could see committee members like Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, as well as other Cowboys, heading out to outlying communities to interact with families and students.
But all this will take what Lively said was the largest budget in the history of the game. He's also aware that the promise of future Super Bowls in the area will only be fulfilled if this one is a success.
And one of the more daunting tasks will be getting people to the Super Bowl itself. Lively acknowledged that with no mass transit in Arlington at all, moving people around will be an issue. Arlington is, he said, one of the largest cities in the U.S. without any mass transit.
So the committee will have to come up with two transportation plans - one for good weather and one for bad weather. It will have to deal with the fact that much of the stadium parking will be consumed by the NFL and Homeland Security, which will insist on a very large barrier around the building.
The committee is studying methods to get people there, including dedicated lanes on I-35 that are only for Super Bowl ticket holders - even possibly with high-tech tickets that have a chip similar to one found in a TollTag to allow admittance into that lane. Using buses to pick up people at certain points around the region is also being studied, as well as possible rail options.
When asked what happens to that year's worth of plans if the $30 million can't be raised, Lively grimaced, then said, "That means I buy a gun and kill myself." He's kidding, of course, but he's also deadly serious - there is "no margin for failure."
So Lively, Aikman and Staubach are making the rounds to companies, seeking million dollar donors. In a Super Bowl first, they're also approaching families to make million dollar donations. The committee has quarterly goals, weekly goals and what Lively called "mid-course correction" goals, all of which serve to monitor the methods used to raise funds for success and failure.
Some programs - like SLANT 45 - are already underwritten. But the others? "We're livin' dangerously," Lively said.
And as the committee hires staff, it's also aware that assembling a team of "seasoned pros" could prove useful long after the Lombardi is awarded in 2011. The infrastructure being put in place now, Lively said, could easily transition to become a North Texas Sports Entertainment Commission, which would actively seek events for the region. North Texas, he said, needs to compete for the same events other large cities are already getting.
Like what? Lively said the "O" word (one I've longed prognosticated this Super Bowl could be a dress rehearsal for) - Olympics.