NFL teams
Darren Rovell, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Scott Suprina: We're not to blame

NFL, Dallas Cowboys

More than four years of silence is enough for Scott Suprina.

On Wednesday, the president of Seating Solutions, the company blamed by some as one of the reasons temporary seating wasn't built in time to accommodate fans at Super Bowl XLV in Arlington, Texas, broke his silence.

Suprina told ESPN.com that he had stayed out of the news and deflected blame from the NFL during a deposition for the federal trial, in which fans who didn't find the seats they paid for have sued the NFL, because league officials told him that it was in his best interests to stay in their favor.

"They encouraged me not to tell the whole story," Suprina said. "They reinforced what my position should be before the deposition."

DreamSeat LLC, a sister company of Seating Solutions, had its license to put NFL logos on furniture revoked three days after the Super Bowl seat debacle, Suprina said, costing him millions of dollars in future orders. Suprina said he was led to believe that if he didn't throw the NFL under the bus, DreamSeat -- which previously had an NFL license for four years -- would get its license back.

But last year, after resubmitting an application, Suprina was denied a license by the NFL.

Motivated by the fact that the closing arguments in the trial would be made Wednesday in Dallas, Suprina said he believed it was time to talk.

In a deposition played last Wednesday for the jurors, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell took the blame for the fact that 1,250 temporary seats were deemed unsafe and were not ready for fans. But that didn't comfort Suprina.

"He took the blame, but eight other NFL employees already blamed us, say that we screwed up," Suprina said. "They put eight times the amount of propaganda out that it was our fault."

While much of the blame has centered on Suprina's company not doing its job on time, he says there were many factors -- some of which have not yet surfaced -- that contributed to the issue.

One was lack of manpower.

Suprina admitted for the first time that the NFL failed five of his employees on background checks.

"They never told us why," Suprina said. "But if my guys failed, I'm sure some of the players on the field that day would have failed."

The other main issue being overlooked, according to Suprina, was irresponsible tardiness on the part of the Dallas Cowboys and the league.

"They didn't send our drawings to permit approval until a month before the game," Suprina said. "We were already on site at that time to do our jobs, which we couldn't do."

Add that to the bad weather that week, and Suprina said the job was impossible.

"The weather kicked our butt," Suprina said. "Everyone talks about two days being lost because of the snow. The threat of ice coming down from the roof lasted forever. We weren't even allowed to work."

An NFL spokesman said the league would have no response to Suprina's comments.

Suprina at least agreed with Goodell that the league was to blame.

"My contract was with the Cowboys, as was the other four events that we installed temporary seating in that building [for]," Suprina said. "No one ever told me that for the Super Bowl, the stadium and all the decision-making belongs to the NFL. They took the ball out of my hands and took over how they saw fit."

Suprina said he laughs at some of the comments that have come out throughout the trial, including the idea that his company tried to use bicycle racks as railings and that his guys walked off the job.

"We did walk off the job," said Suprina, "when we saw people walking to their seats."

If his company did such a bad job, Suprina wonders why the Cowboys hired it to be the official firm for any temporary seating jobs at AT&T Stadium, a contract that is still active.

Suprina said he is shocked that the league didn't settle with the final seven plaintiffs who didn't take the NFL's offers to make things right.

"I can't even comprehend how the NFL let it get this far without settling it," Suprina said. "Other than what I've seen before: ego."

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