Reporting from Arlington, Texas — In the hours leading up to the game, stadium officials were dealing with a seating fiasco.
Four hundred fans were not able to attend the game because a limited number of sections in temporary seating areas were not completed in time.
Originally, 1,250 fans were affected, leaving game workers scrambling to relocate them to similar or better seats. Alternate seating was found for 850 of those people, and the remaining 400 were given a refund of $2,400, triple the face value of their $800 tickets.
One problem (of many) is that people routinely pay far more than face value for their tickets on the secondary market, leaving open the possibility that someone might have lost a lot of money — in addition to missing the game live, of course.
There were reports of spectators enraged by the situation.
"The safety of fans attending the Super Bowl was paramount in making the decision, and the NFL, Dallas Cowboys and city of Arlington officials are in agreement with the resolution," the NFL said in a statement. "We regret the situation and inconvenience that it may have caused. We will conduct a full review of this matter."
In the week leading up to the game, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he expected to set a Super Bowl attendance record. He estimated there would be 105,000 fans inside the stadium, but the official count was 103,219. The attendance record of 103,985 was set at the Rose Bowl for Super Bowl XIV between the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers.
The affected seats were in the top corner sections of an upper deck behind one of the end zones. The fans unable to be seated were taken inside the stadium to watch the game on monitors in the North Field Club, behind the Pittsburgh bench. They were also given the option of viewing the game on the standing-room platforms in each corner of the stadium.
By the numbers
There were a few records set in Super Bowl XLV.
Green Bay won its 13th NFL title — including nine in the pre-Super Bowl era — the most of any franchise. According to Elias Sports Bureau, Green Bay's two touchdowns within 24 seconds in the first quarter were the fastest pair of touchdowns scored by one team in a Super Bowl since Jan. 31, 1993. That's when Dallas scored two touchdowns in 18 seconds against Buffalo, after having scored two touchdowns in 15 seconds earlier that game.
Packers-Steelers also featured the fewest combined rushing attempts of any Super Bowl opponents (36), with Green Bay logging 13.
Leading the way
Green Bay is the first Super Bowl champion to go an entire regular season and postseason without trailing by more than seven points at any time. The 1969 Minnesota Vikings were the last team to do so in the regular season, but they lost Super Bowl IV to Kansas City, 23-7.
Red alert
A day after NFL Films founder Ed Sabol was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his son and many others — including Commissioner Roger Goodell — honored him in a curious way.
They wore red socks.
It seems that's a peculiar habit of the 95-year-old Sabol, always wearing red socks, even with his tuxedo.
"Red socks are like the perfect exclamation point for my dad," said Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films. "Somebody said that when you're around my dad, it's like opening your first bottle of champagne — you just know good things are going to happen."
Steve Sabol said his father has already told him he'll not only be the oldest living Hall of Fame inductee, but his speech will be the shortest.
"I said, 'That's OK, because you're going to go right before Shannon and Deion,' " Steve said, referring to the talkative Shannon Sharp and Deion Sanders. "So he'll be like a little hors d'oeuvres there before the main course."
