NFL Senior VP/Events Frank Supovitz said Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium was "an event of incredible highs and incredible lows," during an in-depth session yesterday at the IMG World Congress of Sports discussing the logistics and technology for the event. While Super Bowl XLV featured a highly competitive game and record TV ratings, the event was dogged by a glaring temporary seating mishap, surprisingly frigid weather and extensive waits for fans and sponsors to get through security and into the building. "It wasn't the way we like to do things," Supovitz said of the heavy lines and seating woes. Supovitz appeared on the panel with Populous Event Manager Todd Barnes. Supovitz said the logistical issues resulted from a difficult collision of a large footprint not only at the stadium itself but the North Texas locale at large, and ice storms and temperatures for several days did not surpass 20 degrees. Supovitz in his remarks responded to EA Sports President Peter Moore, who waited outside the stadium for several hours and wondered aloud in a separate panel yesterday if his multimillion-dollar licensing check for video game rights was big enough anymore. "His check is definitely big enough and good enough, and the money that everybody spent on a ticket was definitely good enough and big enough," Supovitz said. He also discussed the annual halftime spectacle, which is a mad dash involving just nine minutes of stage set-up, 12 minutes of performance and eight minutes of breakdown. "It's an incredibly tense period, but only twice in the last six years have I had to stop the halftime clock by a few seconds," he said.
