We fawn over the new home of the Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys’ brand new stadium hosted its first NFL game last Friday night, and hit the headlines thanks to an apparent flaw in its design. The HD screens that hang over the pitch are the world’s largest at 160 feet wide and 72 feet tall, but they were proved to hang a little too low when Tennessee Titans’ A.J. Trapasso struck one of them with a punt. Scoreboard issues aside, Cowboys Stadium is a stunning feat of engineering that makes the new Wembley Stadium seem quite mundane by comparison.

Like Wembley, Cowboys Stadium was over budget (it ended up costing nearly double the projected $650m , and was partially funded by a half cent rise in Arlington sales tax), and is aesthetically defined by a doublearch design that towers 300 feet over the pitch. Unlike Wembley, however, the roof is fully retractable, and the world’s largest glass doors at either end zone can be opened up on particularly stuffy days. It currently holds 80,000 (10,000 less than Wembley), but will be expanded to a capacity of 100,000 in due course.

National stadium still under construction apparently

[click image to enlarge]

Wembley Stadium was supposed to open in 2006, so this Google Maps image should show our national centrepiece in its current magnificent state. However, the search boffins might want to throw another satellite over North-West London sharpish, or the Kazakhstanis may get a little confused.