The many reasons why the NFL’s Super Bowl has not returned to Arlington, Texas.

AT&T Stadium is half way through its life expectancy.

Opened in May of 2009, the city of Arlington and the Dallas Cowboys’ efforts has “worked,” save for one minor, mystifying disappointment.

The city/stadium has hosted but one Super Bowl, and there are no signs another is coming any time soon. Because everything is made to be thrown away, “new” stadiums only last about 30 years these days.

At this point, we might want to just entertain the notion that one Super Bowl is all AT&T Stadium will ever host.

At least one man refuses to entertain that “notion.” It’s probably closer to at least two men who refuse to entertain it.

“It’s not out of our hands,” Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said in a recent interview. “If you don’t think (Cowboys owner) Jerry Jones doesn’t want that Super Bowl back here, of course he does. We do as well.

“The NFL has its protocols that they do, they move things around and do different things. We are constantly stirring it about getting it back here. We’ll get it back.”

According to a variety of reports from abroad, by 2026 Arlington and AT&T Stadium will have hosted the same number of FIFA World Cup finals matches as Super Bowls.

Las Vegas will host the upcoming Super Bowl 58; the future Super Bowls are New Orleans (2025), Santa Clara, Calif. (2026), and Los Angeles (2027).

Before AT&T Stadium opened, Jerry made it no secret that he wanted to “get in the business of hosting Super Bowls.”

Jerry and the Cowboys planned that their venue would put them in the NFL’s unofficial rotation of host Super Bowl cities: Miami, New Orleans, and Phoenix. With new stadiums now in tourist meccas Los Angeles and Las Vegas, you can forget DFW joining that rotation.

“We keep pushing to get on that (Super Bowl host) list. We meet with the NFL people. We are dealing with the Cowboys on a regular basis,” Ross said. “We keep pushing the commissioner, and everybody else, to get back on the list. The reality of it is when people see what type of events that are being done here, the World Series, the World Series parade, the World Cup, those are the things that help stimulate other interests to come here.

“’The more we do the more we get’ type of a thing.”

Other than a FIFA World Cup, and a Republican National Convention, there aren’t many “big” events AT&T Stadium has not already hosted that it can realistically host.

AT&T Stadium has hosted two WWE WrestleManias, an NBA All-Star game, an NCAA Final Four, the college football national championship game and playoff games, the three-night Taylor Swift Eras concert tour, the two-night Metallica concert, Manny Pacquiao and Canelo Alvarez prize fights, and an assortment of other events.

Since AT&T Stadium opened, the city has added the Texas Live! entertainment area as well as Globe Life Mall for the Texas Rangers.

A rather large issue remains that the one Super Bowl AT&T Stadium and Arlington did host, in Feb. of 2011 between Mike McCarthy’s Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, is perhaps the worst in NFL history.

Not the game. The event.

No one who lived in North Texas during the first week of February in 2011 will ever forget the ice box that became every single neighborhood. For the people who traveled here for either the game, or the week, it was awful.

North Texas experienced near historic record-low temperatures, as well as ice that did not melt for the week leading up to the game. The weather didn’t finally “break” until the afternoon before the game, and even then conditions were hardly ideal.

Before the game, hard ice and snow that fell off the AT&T Stadium roof injured six workers.

There was the fiasco where fans who bought tickets to the Super Bowl either didn’t have a seat, or it was an obstructed view. It led to a lawsuit, which was settled four years after it was filed.

“(That first Super Bowl) changed the dynamics a lot. It was horrible,” Ross said. “I don’t think that’s the reason (Arlington) has not had another Super Bowl. Do I think it’s contributed in some way, shape or form? I don’t know, but we’re going to get it back.”

We are not equipped for the weather that hit the region that year; our way to rectify those conditions consists of sun light, and 50-degree temperatures. That usually fixes all of it.

For years an obstacle to all of this had been Jerry Jones’ refusal to give up a Cowboys home game for the NFL’s international series, played in England and now Germany.

He does not want to give up a home game; his only possible exception is maybe if the game is played in Mexico City.

If that obstacle has indeed been removed, then it should be a matter of when not if Arlington is awarded another Super Bowl.

But the NFL adding L.A. and Vegas to its list of potential sites only complicates, and delays, matters for Arlington; both cities will be in that unofficial rotation of Phoenix, Miami and New Orleans.

“I have been given no assurances of anything, and I wouldn’t begin to say otherwise,” Ross said. “The only thing I can tell you is that we have one of the best facilities in the country, and the NFL is going to obviously want to come back here, in time, for another Super Bowl.

“The Jones’s want that to happen. We’d love for it to happen, and we’ll do everything in our power to make sure it does.”

If the NFL can just forget the first one AT&T Stadium should get one more Super Bowl before its replaced.