North Texas still waiting for chance to host another Super Bowl

North Texas officials can’t help but be a bit envious of Houston this weekend as it hosts another Super Bowl, yet the big game isn’t scheduled to be in DFW anytime soon.

Super Bowl XLV in Dallas was memorable for all the wrong reasons: snow and ice swept the region in February 2011 and seats were missing for ticketholders on game day.

Monica Paul is executive director of the Dallas Sports Commission, whose main objective is to bid on big events to get them to Dallas. The commission didn't exist until two years ago, and since its inception, it's grown from four employees to seven.

But it's the NFL team that typically initiates the bidding process for a city to host the Super Bowl. The next four Super Bowls are already committed to cities that either just built new stadiums, or did major renovations.

"We haven't had discussions with the Cowboys yet in terms of what they might be thinking,” said Monica Paul, Dallas Sports Commission Executive Director. "I would anticipate somewhere between the 2023 to 2026 range."

Houston is the city that has won out recently, getting the Super Bowl at NRG Stadium for the second time in just 13 years.

Tony Fay led the communications team for the Super Bowl when it was in Dallas, and he's involved in almost every major sporting event in the city. Fay said when Dallas hosted the Super Bowl in 2011, the NFL suggested the host committee use Houston's Super Bowl in 2004 as a model.

"Reliant is a fantastic stadium. They have a very well run franchise and they have a great business climate down there,” Fay said.

One thing that Houston has that North Texas does not is a rail line that will take you from downtown to the stadium. It’s about a 20 minute ride for light rail users.

"Other cities have their stadium a little bit closer to downtown, where the majority of the hotels are that have that connectivity,” Paul said. “That would be a plus."

Despite not having the Super Bowl anytime soon, Fay said the past few years have been unprecedented for North Texans.

"We had the men's final four. Then we had the college football playoff national championship, the Academy of Country Music Awards, the WWE. And then we've got the Women's Final Four coming in two months,” Fay said.