A surprising number of San Francisco 49ers secured tickets to the 49ers-Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, turning vast swaths of the 88,000-seat stadium into a sea of red.
reporters in dallas estimated that 40% to 50% of the crowd was wearing 49ers gear.
after san francisco won, 14-3, fox cut a shot from the crowd, and it was all 49ers fans (via @lukezim):
when colin kaepernick threw a touchdown pass to vernon davis, it sounded like a 49ers home game:
There are a lot of reasons for this. Tickets were selling for 241% of face value on the secondary market, according to TicketCity, which was the third-highest average markup of any Week 1 game. For starters, the Cowboys have expensive tickets ($110 per ticket, the fourth-most expensive ticket in the NFL), so it’s hard for season-ticket holders who have seven other games this year to turn down that kind of payday.
The 49ers are one of the most popular teams in the league. And with tickets to brand-new Levi’s Stadium at $122 per seat, the highest in the league, a trip to Dallas doesn’t seem like such a big expense.
But dan wetzel of yahoo sports mentioned another possible reason: cowboy fans are turning on owner jerry jones for the first time.
The Cowboys have been the most mediocre team in the league for five years. they’ve gone 8-8 for three straight seasons and haven’t had a winning season since 2009.
Jones, specifically because he hired himself as general manager, has been the main target of criticism. his track record when it comes to trades, free-agent contracts and especially draft picks is spotty. It’s a roster full of holes, and Jones is the main architect of it.
in a great espn profile of the owner by don van natta jr., jones recounts this exchange he had with a fan recently:
“a fan came up to me, quite adamant, put his finger in my face and said, ‘do you know what a routine is?’
“I said, ‘no’.
“and he said, ‘it’s a coffin with both ends out, in an open grave. you’d rather be dead like that rut you’re in. you better change that, jones.'”
The Cowboys are the most valuable team in the league at $3.2 billion. The team generates $650 million in revenue each year, ESPN reports, and AT&T Stadium is a “cash factory.”
but what the espn profile really shows is how much jones wants two things he can’t buy, 1) another super bowl and 2) relevance.
“if we had cast manziel, he would guarantee our relevance for 10 years,” he told van natta about why he wanted to recruit johnny manziel. he openly talked about how much he regrets he didn’t take johnny football.
the fact that cowboys season ticket holders apparently sold their week 1 seats on stubhub en masse, and that they were all purchased by 49ers fans, is a disastrous sign for jones’s two targets . The Cowboys aren’t a good team (as the first half against San Francisco showed), and they’re not going to legitimately contend for a Super Bowl this year.
but it’s been a mediocre team for a while. now it is in danger of becoming irrelevant.