U2’s Next Brush with the NFL will be Spendy
U2 has performed at the Super Bowl … they’ve done a pro football-themed music video for “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” … and now they’re apparently going to have another brush with the NFL at a cost of two million dollars. (Say that like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies….)
See, the Dallas Cowboys just spent $1.2 billion (with a B) on a new stadium, and U2 will play there on October 12. One of the new gizmos in this football palace is the biggest HD video screen ever made. It’s 60 yards long (it runs from one 20-yard-line to the other) and takes up most of the interior of the stadium. Here’s a pic taken Friday night by Flickr user CamMan that shows how enormous this thing is:
It’s not only enormous, but it’s also intrusive. During the first pre-season game played in the stadium on Friday night, a punt hit the video screen (which is way too low). Have a look at the video to see how low the video screen hangs:
It doesn’t take a genius to look at that photo and then the video and realize that there ain’t no way U2’s claw is gonna fit in that stadium. NFL teams, understandably, want the video screen raised, but this TV news report says the Cowboys won’t raise it until right before the U2 concert.
Why? Because U2 has apparently promised to pay $2 million to have the job done so The Claw can fit inside.
Crazy, isn’t it?
(Flickr photo by CamMan and used via Creative Commons licensing.)
Last 4 posts by m2
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The Cowboys are stupid for building such a large screen in the first place. As I watched the game the other night and listening to the announcers ooh and aah about this $40 million dollar high def screen and then seeing the punters hitting the bottom of it, I had to laugh.
It’s too bad U2 has to foot the bill for something that stadium designers should have seen in the first place.
There’s another video on there that shows them already raising it because of the punting incident. I can’t believe that they didn’t think of this before.
When I first read this I couldn’t believe what I was reading! The more I thought about it the more irritated I became. If the Dallas Cowboys could afford to build a stadium at the cost of 1.2 billion dollars then they should pay for the cost of adjusting the video screen to fit it’s purpose of “regulation” football stadium – and if they booked a U2 concert – then in my mind – that means it is a multi-purpose stadium for concerts too. Why should U2 have to pay for their designer’s huge error? I respectfully submit that the Dallas Cowboys turn the 2 million dollars over to the African Well fund to build wells in Africa. The Cowboys can afford it!
Another reason to hate pro sports. Greed.
Why bother with the claw in this stadium? They already have the huge screen for everyone to look at that’s out of the way (there are no support legs to block the view). Couldn’t they build a stage without the claw and plug their video feed into the stadium’s screen?
The screen is 5ft HIGHER than the NFL requires, so don’t go blaming the Cowboys.
Ya’ll (that means, “you guys”, for those that don’t understand Texan) know everything is better and bigger in TEXAS!!!! U2 is going to have that place ROCKIN’!!!! I can’t wait.
This story is incorrect.
The cost to raise the screen for the U2 concert is $40,000.
The changes made to the screen set-up immediately after the punting incident had to do with installing winches to raise the screen for the U2 show (and any other events like it). When raised, the screen will be disconnected and inoperable.
The much ballyhooed price of $2 million to raise the screen involves major modifications that would allow the screen to operate at a higher altitude. Presumably, that would involve major rerouting of data/video/electrical cabling or the addition of some sort of movable harness that can adjust to a variety of screen positions.
and the really awful thing is, the new stadium has the WORST sound for concerts that you could imagine. it is possibly the worst sound in any indoor stadium. it’s so bad that i’m going to bail on the dallas show. just see them in dc, nyc, boston, and rose bowl.
What are you basing the “worst sound” opinion on?
The first concert was pretty rough, but they specifically had acoustical experts at the show to monitor and record the acoustics so they could make major adjustments to improve the sound. An empty stadium has a very different sound than a full stadium because of all of the “soft” bodies interfering with the sound waves that would ordinarily bounce off of hard surfaces. Since it is hard to get 75,000-80,000 people to fill a stadium simply to do acoustical tests, the first concert or two is going to be rough until they finalize the acoustical signature of the place.
They’ve had about three or four shows there so far (the inaugural concert, the Jonas Brothers, and Paul McCartney), and I’ve heard the that the sound has improved each time. Moreover, U2 has one of the best sound teams out there and they’ve previously been able to get pretty good sound even in horrible venues, such as the Astrodome, using lower tech equipment than they have now.
I’m not too worried.