AT&T Stadium Capacity, Tickets, Seating Plan, Records, Location, Parking
AT&T Stadium, formerly Cowboys Stadium, is a retractable-roof stadium in Arlington, Texas, United States. It serves as the home of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL) and was completed on May 27, 2009. It is also the home of the Cotton Bowl Classic and the Big 12 Championship Game.
The stadium is one of eleven US venues established to host matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Owned by the City of Arlington, the facility can also be used for a variety of other activities, including concerts, basketball games, soccer, college and high school football contests, rodeos, motocross, Spartan Races and professional wrestling. It replaced the partially covered Texas Stadium, which served as the home of the Cowboys from 1971 through the 2008 season.
The stadium is widely known as Jerry World and The Death Star after Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones who originally envisioned it as a great entertainment venue. The stadium seats around 80,000 people, but can be reconfigured to hold around 100,000 seats, making it the largest stadium in the NFL by seating capacity.
Additional assistance is made possible by Party Pass sections (open areas) behind the seats in each end zone that are placed on a series of six raised platforms connected by stairs. The attendance record for an NFL regular season game was set in 2009 with a crowd of 105,121. It also has the 34th largest high-definition video screen in the world.
| Built In: | September 20, 2005 |
| Capacity: | 80,000 (expandable to 105,000) |
| Home Teams: | Dallas FC |
AT&T Stadium History
It serves as the home of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL) and was completed on May 27, 2009. It is also the home of the Cotton Bowl Classic and the Big 12 Championship Game. The stadium is one of eleven venues in the US established to host matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The stadium was supposed to cost $650 million to build, but it ended up costing $1.15 billion. This makes it one of the most expensive sports venues ever built. To help the Cowboys’ owner and general manager Jerry Jones pay the construction costs for the new stadium, Arlington voters approved increasing the city’s sales tax by 0.5%, the tax on hotel occupancy by 2%, and the car rental tax by 5%.
The City of Arlington provided more than $325 million (including interest) in bonds as financing, and Jones covered the cost overruns. In addition, the NFL provided the Cowboys with an additional $150 million loan, following its policy of facilitating financing for the construction of new stadiums.
The lead architect on the HKS Architects design team for the project was Bryan Trubey, who has stated that the overall concept for the stadium was “…that it shouldn’t just be a stadium, but should be built almost like a civic structure.”
A pair of arches nearly 300 feet (91 m) high span the length of the stadium’s dome (one of the tallest domes in the world), anchored to the ground at each end. The new stadium also includes “more than 3,000 Sony LCD screens in luxury suites, lobbies, concession areas and more, offering fans viewing options that extend beyond the action on the field.” It also houses a center hung Mitsubishi video display board that was the largest HDTV screen in the world at the time of its installation. It has since been surpassed in size by the Panasonic “Big Hoss” video board (218 feet (66 m) wide and 94.6 feet (28.8 m) tall) at Texas Motor Speedway. The glass doors, which allow each end zone to be opened, were designed and built by Dallas-based Haley-Greer Glass Systems.
The retractable roof was designed by structural engineering firm Walter P Moore and the systems were implemented by machining consultants Uni-Systems. Cowboys Stadium’s retractable roof electrification was developed by VAHLE, Inc. Using these basic principles of kinetic architecture, buildings can be changed quickly to fit a wide range of events.
When the design was officially unveiled on December 12, 2006, it showed that from inside the stadium, the roof (membrane installed by K Post Company of Dallas) will look very similar to the roof of Texas Stadium, complete with its signature hole. However, it can be covered with the retractable roof panel to protect it from the elements.
The artificial turf field was built by Hellas Construction, which developed a special SoftTop Convertible Turf system that has 26 interchangeable panels to allow the stadium to host a variety of events, from concerts, dirt bike races and monster truck rallies to college football. , basketball, and soccer games.
A Dallas Cowboys Hall of Fame is planned for the Hall of Fame level. The drawings also include a site for a large sculpture to the northeast of the stadium, near Randol Mill Road. Mayor Robert Cluck claimed to use eminent domain as a last resort, but most properties refused to be sold to the city, indicating the incentive program was inadequate according to Glenn Sodd, an attorney who represents some property owners. homes in the area.
Attorney Bob Cohen, who represents some of the owners, said the city gave many of his clients little incentive to sell. He said he represents some rental property owners who were counting on that monthly retirement income and said most homeowners can’t afford to rebuild or buy in that area with the incentive package. He was quoted an Arlington attorney as saying, “The mayor sold out and the council moved on.”
Stadium Capacity
AT&T Stadium has a seating capacity of 80,000.
AT&T Stadium Seating Plan
Notable Events & Records
NFL
- On January 3, 2010, the Cowboys defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in a 24-0 shutout to win the NFC East division title and complete the first consecutive shutouts in franchise history.
- On January 9, 2010, the Cowboys hosted their first playoff game in the new stadium, again playing the Eagles. Dallas won 34-14, breaking their infamous 13-year playoff win drought.
- On February 6, 2011, the stadium hosted Super Bowl XLV in which the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25. Others bidding for the game’s location included University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Cowboys attempted to increase their seating capacity to 105,000 in hopes of setting the attendance record for a Super Bowl. In a last minute rush to add seats during one of the area’s most notorious ice storms, 7 construction workers were injured when ice slipped off the stadium roof. Hours before the start, more than 1,200 seats were blocked for the sake of security; according to a police officer in the affected area, the seats had not been completed in time for the fire marshal to inspect them. Approximately 800 people were given other seats inside the stadium, costing the NFL any chance of setting the Super Bowl attendance record (the final figure of 103,219 was 766 short of the record set at Super Bowl XIV). However, some 400 people were unable to sit down and received a letter from the NFL that could be redeemed for three times the face value of the ticket. Those people were also given the option of watching on a television in one of the ballrooms of the stadium, where they would not be able to see the field in person, or watching on screens outside the stadium. The NFL also announced that those 400 people would receive free tickets to next year’s Super Bowl. On February 9, 2011, the first lawsuit was filed against the NFL and Jerry Jones. In 2018, the stadium hosted the 2018 NFL Draft.
Records
Football: 105,121 September 20, 2009 Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants
Upcoming Events
2026 FIFA World Cup
AT&T Stadium will host several matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be organised and hosted in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In September 2022, it was reported that the stadium could host the final. In the years leading up to the start of the tournament, the stadium will be fixed up.
Parking
There are approximately 12,000 parking spaces spread across 15 numbered lots at AT&T Stadium. In addition, there are nearly 12,000 parking spaces in labeled lots around the Texas Rangers Ballpark that can be used on the day of the event. Parking areas are generally open five (5) hours prior to Cowboys games.
