The Cowboys on Sunday will begin their fourth season at Cowboys Stadium against the Buccaneers, and the team is “still fine-tuning its pregame and in-game fan experience to compete with the living room experience,” according to a front-page piece by Jeff Mosier of the DALLAS MORNING NEWS. The team plans to add "children’s activities, improved scoreboard information and cellphone apps," and will expand "outdoor plaza hours and entertainment.” Cowboys Exec VP/Brand Management and President of Charities Charlotte Jones Anderson said, “Our competition is the home theater, being with your friends, watching your big screen and yelling at the television set. We can create that same atmosphere with that whole big picture as well as the live game. Nobody else can do that.” Mosier reports the outdoor plaza on Cowboys Stadium’s east side “will open four hours before kickoff instead of two hours.” Fans can “show up early for what the team’s calling the ‘Cowboys Tailgate Party,’ with discounted food and drinks, live music and other entertainment.” The Cowboys “hope the expanded plaza party will be especially popular with fans who buy standing-room-only tickets.” In addition, the Kids Zone area “has been expanded to include a mechanical bull and a zip line.” Anderson said that she “doesn’t see a day when teams run out of ways to improve the game presentation or pregame entertainment.” Mosier notes the Cowboys have “experimented with innovative ideas with varying degrees of success.” A 3-D experiment “was maligned by many, and Anderson said that’s probably not in the Cowboys’ future.” But “augmented reality, which combines the real world with computer-generated imagery, is a more likely direction.” Meanwhile, team officials “mentioned several years ago that a Cowboys Hall of Fame would be part of the new stadium.” Cowboys Dir of Corporate Communications Brett Daniels said that team officials are “still mulling over concepts” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 9/21).
