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Texas Stadium
Location	2401 East Airport Freeway Irving, Texas 75062
Opened	October 24, 1971
Owner	City of Irving
Operator	Texas Stadium Corp
Surface	Artificial Turf
Construction cost	$35 million USD
Tenants
Dallas Cowboys (NFL) (1971-2008) Dallas Tornado (NASL) (1972-1975)
Capacity
65,675

Texas Stadium is the home field of the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys. It is in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, and opened on October 24, 1971, at a cost of $35 million. The stadium seats 65,675.

Built to replace the aging Cotton Bowl, the stadium was to have originally been a domed stadium, but the stadium could not support the weight of the entire roof, and public funding ran out^{[citation needed]} before the roof support structure could be modified. This resulted in most of the stands being enclosed but not the playing field itself. This unusual arrangement - more commonly seen in European soccer stadiums - prompted Cowboys linebacker D.D. Lewis to make his now-famous quip that the "hole" in the stadium's roof was there "so that God can watch His team."

The stadium hosts neutral-site college football games and formerly was home to the SMU Mustangs before the NCAA shut down its football program in 1987-88. (SMU has since built its own on-campus stadium.) In November and December, Texas Stadium is a major venue for high school football. It is not uncommon for there to be high school football tripleheaders at the stadium. Texas Stadium has served as a temporary home for two Dallas-area high schools, Plano Senior High School in 1979 after its home stadium was damaged by a prank gone awry, and Highland Park High School while a new stadium on campus was being built. The 2001 Big 12 conference championship game was held at the site, as well as the 1973 Pro Bowl. In addition to football, the stadium has hosted concerts, wrestling events, and religious gatherings such as Promise Keepers and Billy Graham crusades (a Graham crusade was the first event held at Texas Stadium). The two "bridges" that are connected to one of the support arms are called "Garth Bars". They were installed for a Garth Brooks concert so he could fly above the crowd and have remained ever since.

The playing surface installed in 1971 officially was labeled Texas Turf, and was a form of AstroTurf; it was replaced by a somewhat softer surface called RealGrass in the middle of the 2002 season.

The Cowboys will leave Texas Stadium after the 2008 NFL season for a new, as-yet-unnamed stadium; to open for the 2009 NFL season; that will be partially funded by taxpayers in Arlington, Texas. In November 2004, Arlington voters approved a half-cent (.005 per US Dollar) sales tax to fund $325 million of the then estimated $650 million stadium by a margin of 55-45. Jerry Jones, the Cowboys' owner, spent over $5 million backing the ballot measure, but also agreed to cover any cost overruns which as of 2006 had already raised the estimated cost of the project to $1 billion.

The fate of Texas Stadium after the Cowboys' departure remains uncertain. However, the famed roof, whose worn paint had become unsightly in the early 2000s, was repainted in the summer of 2006 by the City of Irving. It was the first time the famed roof was repainted since Texas Stadium opened. The roof is structurally independent from the stadium it covers. As a tribute to the original Texas Stadium, the new stadium, which is a retractable roof system, will also include a setting that mimics the hole in the roof. [1]

• http://www.california.com/~csuppes/NFL/DallasCowboys/index.htm includes a photo giving a good impression of the scale of the stadium.
• http://www.crossroadsdfw.com shows potential redevelopment plans for the stadium after the Cowboys leave, including possible preservation of the roof by itself.

Coordinates: 32°50′23.17″N, 96°54′39.28″W