Briefs: Unsafe seating arrangement leads to angry, displaced fans

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones may have tried a little too hard to break the Super Bowl attendance record.

About 1,250 fans were displaced Sunday because their temporary seats were deemed unsafe – 400 who were not allowed inside, and 850 who were relocated elsewhere in the Arlington, Texas, stadium.

The move angered fans.

“Jerry sold tickets he didn’t own,” said Glen Long, a Steelers fan from Baltimore. “They call that fraud anywhere in the world.”

The NFL said the people relocated were put in “similar or better seats.” Those turned away will be given a refund of triple …

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones may have tried a little too hard to break the Super Bowl attendance record.

About 1,250 fans were displaced Sunday because their temporary seats were deemed unsafe – 400 who were not allowed inside, and 850 who were relocated elsewhere in the Arlington, Texas, stadium.

The move angered fans.

“Jerry sold tickets he didn’t own,” said Glen Long, a Steelers fan from Baltimore. “They call that fraud anywhere in the world.”

The NFL said the people relocated were put in “similar or better seats.” Those turned away will be given a refund of triple the face value, which ranged from $600 to $1,200, but that might not be enough for folks who paid much more to scalpers, not to mention travel and hotel costs.

“We don’t want (a refund),” said Odett Karam, a Packers fan from California. “We just want to get into the game. We just want to see the game.”

Gerry Grillo, from New Jersey, said he paid $3,000 for a ticket with a face value of $600, so he’s among those who lost money.

“Now they’re saying it’s (in an) invalid section … saying give us three times the face value and go pound salt,” Grillo said.

While most fans were allowed into the stadium, fans in the affected areas were put into a fenced off area, where they became increasingly unruly. There were chants of “Jerry Sucks!” and “NFL Sucks!”

Anthem malfunction

Christina Aguilera flubbed a line as she sang the national anthem to open the Super Bowl.

When she was supposed to sing the line “O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?” she instead repeated an earlier line, with a slight variation.

She sang “What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming,” which is the same line from earlier in the song but with the word “watched” instead of the word “hailed.”

The mistake immediately set social networks abuzz with people commenting on the error.

Already a Wynn-er

Even before kickoff, Super Bowl Sunday was a big day for Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Jarius Wynn, who was present for the birth of his son at a Dallas-area hospital.