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Root Cause of Super Bowl Power Failure Still Undetermined Out of Darkness, Springing Into Action
(about 9 hours later)
NEW ORLEANS — On Monday, less than 24 hours after a moment as surreal as any other in recent Super Bowl memory, the N.F.L. and local officials spent less time talking about the game and more time talking about the third-quarter power failure in the Superdome. NEW ORLEANS — When half the Superdome went dark Sunday, so did the N.F.L.’s control center, up near the top of the stadium, above the last row of seats. Among the two dozen gathered there was Doug Thornton, the building’s manager since 1997.
Commissioner Roger Goodell made two points repeatedly: that the power failure would not impact the city’s ability to host future Super Bowls and that it was not caused by the halftime show, which featured Beyoncé. The Baltimore Ravens won the game, 34-31, withstanding a comeback attempt by the San Francisco 49ers that began after a nearly 35-minute delay caused by the failure. Thornton shepherded the Superdome through the ugly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and through a $336 million renovation. Super Bowl XLVII was supposed to be his showcase, part of a continuing resurgence.
What was not explained is what actually happened to cause lights at the stadium to go out. Goodell and stadium officials said a “root cause analysis” was under way. And then the lights went out.
Doug Thornton, senior vice president for stadiums and arenas at SMG, which manages the Superdome, said the failure, which started about 90 seconds into the third quarter, occurred because a “piece of equipment sensed some abnormalities” and “shunted the power in the Superdome.” He declined to speculate beyond that. It was among the oddest moments in Super Bowl history. Some players did Pilates stretches on the field. Others lay on their backs. Fans remained in their seats or refueled at the beer lines. AT&T said its customers consumed 78 gigabytes of data on the in-stadium network during halftime and the blackout, double the peak hour at last year’s Super Bowl.
“It’s premature at this point to say what it was,” Thornton said of a possible cause. Thornton remained calm. Cameras from Showtime’s “60 Minutes Sports” happened to be in the command center, filming a longer feature. They captured Thornton’s breaking the news of an impending delay to the N.F.L.
In regard to the halftime show, Thornton told reporters it was conducted on a generated power system, which meant it “was not on our power grid at all.” He added that officials monitored the consumption of power during halftime, and that it had gone down because the stadium lights were off. “I wasn’t quite sure what was going on,” Thornton said.
Goodell said that an injury occurred during the power failure, on an escalator, but that the N.F.L. and other officials were unaware of any other such incidents. Immediately, the questions started. What happened? How could it be fixed?
“This will not affect the view of the success of the game here in New Orleans,” Goodell said. “I do not think this will have any impact at all.” It took two minutes to determine the issue was one of power, not of public safety. It took more than 30 minutes to resume play. The process involved league officials, stadium officials, representatives from the electric company and electrical consultants.
He added, “I fully expect to be back here for Super Bowls.” The investigation continued Monday without definitive answers. Workers buzzed around the Superdome, taking down purple signs and gossiping about the blackout. Official merchandise sold at a 50 percent discount. The doors to the building were locked, but a peek inside showed the lights in the corridors were on.
The 49ers staged a comeback after the lights went out. Baltimore Coach John Harbaugh said Monday that the interruption “probably gave them an opportunity to get their balance.” But he also said he felt San Francisco would have made a run at some point of the second half, regardless. Locals seemed eager to move on. It seemed to please them to hear Commissioner Roger Goodell at his morning news conference dismiss the notion that the blackout would hurt the city’s future host bids.
Thornton oversaw the post-Hurricane Katrina renovation of the Superdome, which this Super Bowl was supposed to showcase. He said it was too early to blame the stadium itself for what happened. City officials and prominent citizens tried to shift the narrative toward what had gone right. The game between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers drew an average audience of 108.4 million viewers, down slightly from a year ago, but still among the most viewed events ever. The last 17 minutes were the most watched, as the 49ers staged a thrilling comeback that ultimately ended in defeat.
“After all we’ve been through here in New Orleans, it seems like we can’t escape the worldwide attention of these kinds of events,” he said. “An unfortunate circumstance at such a great moment for the city. It’s a disappointing moment. But when you’re relying on systems; it’s not human error, it’s an equipment error. We’ll get to the root cause of it. We’ll find out what it is. It’s very disappointing.” The rest of the week did little to damage the reputation of New Orleans as a city built to host major events.
The political consultant James Carville, a Louisiana native, was at the Superdome when it went dark. He rushed back to his hotel to sift through news accounts and make phone calls. He said he thought officials had responded promptly, mitigating the potential harm.
“They identified the problem and fixed it,” Carville said. “Everybody was well behaved.”
Scott Givens watched the Super Bowl unfold in Moscow, on his laptop. His company, FiveCurrents, stages some of the world’s most complex events, including the opening ceremony at the London Olympics. He sympathized with stadium officials.
On opening night in London, Givens said, the ceremony was conducted using power sources that were not part of the normal grid. The city could have lost power, and the show would have continued.
“How you react is key,” Givens said. “Things will break, will go wrong. It’s not like a movie where you can shoot the scene over and over until you get it right. This was a major failure. The fact they got it up and running so fast was really extraordinary.”
By Monday night, stadium representatives had not declared an exact cause of the blackout. At a morning news conference, Thornton said it resulted from an “abnormality” with a sensor at a substation that “shunted” power to the Superdome.
Thornton and Goodell dismissed the idea that the halftime extravaganza that featured Beyoncé contributed to the power failure. The show, in all its pyrotechnic glory, ran off generated power. Thornton said during the show there was actually a drop in overall power consumption.
Asked if a stadium as old as the Superdome, which was built in 1975 and has hosted seven Super Bowls, is no longer equipped to host an event of this magnitude, Thornton noted the renovations. He pointed to the other events the city had hosted in the past 13 months, including the Bowl Championship Series title game and the men’s basketball Final Four last year.
A report in the local Times-Picayune detailing the minutes from recent meetings for the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District reveals a rush toward electrical improvements in the months before the game. Officials said they did not believe there was a connection between that late work and the blackout.
Stacy Head, who serves on the New Orleans City Council, said: “The week was an overwhelming success. The blackout was a disappointment. It was a fluke.”

Ken Belson contributed reporting.