Jerry Jones could be facing lawsuit from Super Bowl patrons

[DC_fan]

Super Bowl XLV has been over for more than 24 hours, but Jerry Jones may not be able to put the event behind him just yet.

According to a press release, Jones and the Cowboys could be facing a lawsuit from fans concerning their seating at Cowboys Stadium during the Green Bay Packers' 31-25 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And those issues are not related to the 400 fans who were turned away from their unsafe temporary seating on Sunday.
More from the press release:

Eagan Avenatti, LLP, a law firm specializing in consumer rights, launched an investigation Tuesday into possible claims against the Cowboys and Jones after receiving reports that the Cowboys and Jones deceived hundreds of the team's best season ticket holders into paying $1,200 a seat for Super Bowl tickets that turned out to be temporary seats with obstructed views.

The season ticket holders, known as the "Founders" of Cowboys Stadium, each paid at least $100,000 per seat for a personal seat license at the stadium, which the Cowboys and Jones promised would entitle them to the "best sightlines in the stadium" and the right to purchase a ticket to Sunday's Super Bowl at face value.

Instead, they arrived at the stadium Sunday to discover that Jones and the Cowboys had assigned them to sit in obstructed view, temporary metal seats, which had only recently been installed in an effort to meet Jones' goal of breaking NFL Super Bowl attendance records. Adding insult to injury, almost all of the seats lacked any view whatsoever of the Cowboys' video board.

The "Founders" season ticket holders collectively account for over $100 Million in personal seat licenses Jones sold to pay for the construction of the stadium, as well as over $3,000,000 in annual season ticket sales, according to the statement released by the firm based in Los Angeles.
"These season ticket holders are rightfully irate at Jones and the Cowboys," said lead attorney Michael Avenatti. "Jones sold the very fans that helped finance the construction of the stadium on the idea of attending the Super Bowl, took their money, and then put them in illegitimate seats with obstructed views. What team or owner on the planet would treat its best fans like this?"

As a result of these allegations, Eagan Avenatti, LLP is preparing a lawsuit on behalf of ticket holders who were damaged.

"We will get to the bottom of this," Michael Avenatti added. "And when we do, I expect we will find that greed and ego had a lot to do with what happened."

By JON MACHOTA / Special contributor to SportsDayDFW.com

http://superbowlblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/02/jerry-jones-facing-lawsuit-fro.html

 

[Big Mick]

f**king whingers...what do they want? They get triple their money plus tickets, flights and accommodation to next years super bowl.

I mean...far out...I'd be stoked with that.

 

[Monk]

Mick pretty much summed up my point of view.

 

[zombie jesus]

The people this article is about aren't the ones who get to go to next year's SB for free.

 

[Raider_69]

typical yanks, a very litigious nation

 

[Dr Crane]

i know a guy who attended. the temporary seating was a downright joke. this is a section that wasn't shut down.

unbelievable.

 

[Eelectrica]

If they paid $1200 to watch the game on a tv inside the stadium, I think they have a point.

 

[kurt faulk]

Long lines, chaotic situation at Super Bowl

The National Football Post 4 hours, 19 min

In the wake of the disastrous ticket debacle at the Super Bowl where hundreds of fans were displaced despite being paying customers holding tickets to the big game with litigation on the horizon, there's another level of dissatisfaction.





That involves unhappy fans who waited in long lines as they trudged into Cowboys Stadium to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers.

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Veteran NFL reporter Cliff Christl sent the National Football an e-mail detailing the experience of fans, including his wife, as they tried to make it inside before kickoff.

Here's a portion of his letter, which he has also forwarded to several media outlets that cover the NFL:


"My wife and I arrived at the stadium about 1:30 on a bus. I had a media pass and my wife had a game ticket, so we walked to the media gate first and asked where she should enter. We were told by a gatekeeper there to walk to Gate W, where we saw a sea of humanity: Maybe 35 to 50 yards wide and several blocks long."


"From what I could subsequently gather, Gate W was actually a security checkpoint, not one of the 10 gates to the stadium (four of which were apparently closed for security reasons). Based on the instructions of the gatekeeper and having driven or walked along two sides of the stadium, I suspect Gate W was one of only one or two outside gates for regular ticketholders to enter. And I assume that means more than 50,000 fans who had tickets other than for the luxury boxes and club seats had to cram their way into one or two gates.


"Anyway, I entered the stadium through the media gate within 10 minutes. My wife stood in line for 2½ hours. As the time passed, I ran into an old friend from Green Bay, Mike McKenna, a former WBAY sportscaster and now owner of The Karma Group, who was there with his family. He explained that he and his family had waited more than two hours to get in, and that it was a nightmare outside. The more stories I heard the more dreadful they sounded.


"Desperate people were going to the bathroom in empty beer cans, along the fence area, and they weren’t all men. Little kids were getting pushed around. Older people were becoming woozy, complaining of pain and dropping out. One elderly man told my wife he was feeling pain in his chest, his legs were numb, and he could no longer take it. People started jumping the gates that everyone had to snake through as they got closer to the stadium and tempers flared. And apparently there was nobody around as far as stadium personnel to help or guide anyone."


"One other almost comical note that my wife told me: Once she got inside the security tent after 2-plus hours in line, things slowed down again there. There were three or four security lines with a total of about 12 people helping to check bags, scan tickets, wand people who had set off the alarms, etc. And here’s the kicker: She said there were four small buckets in her line that people dropped their change, keys, anything that would set off the alarm into. And because there were only four, people had to stand there and wait as someone walked them back one by one."


"I expected to read something about this whole fiasco in Monday’s Dallas Morning News, but their writers were too busy gushing and crowing about what a wonderful day it was after all the bad weather during the week."


"The fan in the stands had to wait in your cattle lines 2 to 3 hours to get into the stadium. In the process, desperate people had to relieve themselves in empty beer cans and along the fence line. Some older fans wilted in the sun and claustrophobic conditions and had to drop out. Inside the stadium, the lines to buy Super Bowl gear were endless. Some of the concession stands ran out of food before kickoff. Some fans lost their tickets because of improperly installed seats that couldn't be repaired. Perhaps it was understandable that you didn't have plows or salt last week, but don't you have wrenches in Texas, either? Your incompetence at hosting a Super Bowl was beyond belief.


"While I was waiting in the concourse for two hours, I also observed a long line the entire time outside the Pro Shop where people could buy Super Bowl gear. It never seemed to move or get any shorter. I ran into a former colleague at my old paper, and she said she had walked the entire concourse and found only two Pro Shops both with long lines. Also, the nearest concession stand where I was waiting had run out of food, except for nachos, an hour before kickoff."


"My wife, Mike McKenna and others that I talked to were being good sports about it. As my wife said, after paying what she did for a ticket, she just wanted to put the nightmare behind her and enjoy the game. I think the host committee in Dallas was lucky that Green Bay and Pittsburgh were in the Super Bowl, and people were just happy to be there and not inclined to cause trouble."


"As time passes, more and more people are sharing stories about people waiting for hours in line. But I have yet to see anyone investigate the debacle in Dallas and how poorly almost all fans were treated, not just the unfortunate ones who lost their seats."


In light of so much going wrong in Dallas, the league really needs to look into this situation as well while performing its due diligence to avoid similar problems at future Super Bowls

 

[Cupid Stunt]

^^^ Good read. Though if me or mine had to go through that I couldn't help but make it a little more colourful. Should never be like that, & really, it's not like the SB was sprung on them last minute.

 

[Big Mick]

If they paid $1200 to watch the game on a tv inside the stadium, I think they have a point.

If they paid $1,200 for that...then suck sh*t. They have more Dollars than sense.