DALLAS (AP) — Football fans have filed a lawsuit accusing the
NFL, the Dallas Cowboys and team owner Jerry Jones of deceiving hundreds
of people who bought Super Bowl tickets and had no seats, or got seats
they felt were inadequate.
The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Dallas alleges breach of contract, fraud and deceptive sales
practices.
It
was filed two days after fans were prevented from having seats at
Sunday’s game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers
at Cowboys Stadium because of a problem with temporary seats.
One
of the plaintiffs is a Cowboys season ticket-holder who said some of
Jones’ biggest-spending fans were promised access to Super Bowl tickets
and ended up with obstructed views on metal folding chairs.
"Unfortunately,
not all of the ticket-holders to Super Bowl XLV got what they bargained
for or what was promised to them," the lawsuit states.
Spokesmen for the Cowboys and the NFL had no comment.
The
NFL had announced hours before the game that about 1,250 temporary
seats were deemed unsafe, and the league scrambled to find new seats for
about 850 people. The remaining 400 were forced to watch the game on TV
monitors or from standing-room-only areas.
The lawsuit alleges
that Cowboys fans who paid $100,000 per seat just for the right to buy
season tickets were never told that their Super Bowl seats would be
temporary with obstructed views. The lawsuit says the team has offered
no compensation for "illegitimate seats."
The NFL has said that
the roughly 400 fans have two options. The first is a ticket to next
year’s Super Bowl and a cash payment of $2,400, three times the face
value of the ticket. The second is a ticket to any future Super Bowl,
along with round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations.
The Packers beat the Steelers 31-25 in the Super Bowl.
