There is a small part of Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill that knows it’ll be a little tough on Monday night to walk into his own stadium and see the blue and yellow. To experience all the facets of a rival’s home playoff game.
“It might be a little painful to hear, ‘Whose house? Rams House!,'" Bidwill joked to NFL.com late Saturday night. “But our hearts are breaking with what’s going on. ... It’s what’s best for the league, it’s what’s best for the team, and we have to do everything we can to make sure we have a great game.”
The NFL announced on Thursday that, in the interest of public safety, the Vikings-Rams wild-card game on Monday night had been moved from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, to the Cardinals' State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, due to raging wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
When asked by the NFL during the middle of this past week to be the contingency site for such an event -- to have a rival host a playoff game in his stadium -- he thought back to a lesson his father taught him.
“It’s always a good time to do the right thing,” Bidwill said. “If we can do something to help ... maybe this is the only thing we can do. Let’s put our energy into it and try to focus on it and make it a great experience, whether it’s the players, their families or the coaches.”
In a whirlwind few days, the Cardinals went from wrapping up their season, finishing football and business items to prepare for the offseason, to turning their stadium around to host a playoff game.
It started with a call from NFL executive Dawn Aponte, who asked Bidwill, “Could you be ready?”
State Farm Stadium often serves as the contingency plan in the event of an emergency, and by making that phone call, it was clear it was probable, not possible. Even before the “Go” call from the league, Bidwill’s organization spun into action.
“I spoke to the team later that morning and said, 'Look if this is gonna happen, let's get ahead of it,'” Bidwill said. “Let's get prepared and start thinking about everything that we'll need to be doing to make this happen.”
From preparing the stadium to figuring out the ticket situation (Rams use Ticketmaster, Cardinals use SeatGeek) to going over logistics, they examined it all. Bidwill said he spoke to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell several times to go over specifics.
“We shifted all of our attention even before the announcement to making sure that we were ready to go,” Bidwill said. “We knew that the people in their organization have been going through tremendous stress, with their families and friends that were losing everything and we wanted to be as thoughtful as we could. And then we realized the families were coming. It was like, OK, that's a whole other layer to this.”
Bidwill asked his staff to put together lists of everything the Rams could need, from activities to babysitters to ice cream parlors.
“We tried to think of everything,” he said.
The Cardinals have gone above and beyond to make the Rams feel at home. Here’s how, according to the club:
- They’ve scrambled to get enough paint in Rams colors -- Blue PMS 2736 and Yellow PMS 109 -- for the field and end zone. To that end, 200 gallons were driven from a factory in Leland, Mississippi to Arizona, all of 1,500 miles, which arrived Saturday. The playoff-themed stencils were shipped from Los Angeles.
- On a few days notice, the team ordered enough food to feed 60,000, and they now have normal, game-day quantities. That means 10,000 hot dogs, 3,000 hamburgers, 4,500 orders of chicken tenders, 5,500 individual pizzas, 3,500 pounds of corn kernels for popcorn, 1,200 pounds of prime rib and 800 pounds of beef tenderloin.
- The Cardinals sent two Boeing 777 planes to pick up the Rams, staff and their families, which included 300 humans and eight pets. They used Gridiron Air, a company Bidwill founded, to make it happen. “It was good we could do it on such short notice,” Bidwill said.
- All the Rams equipment that was trucked to Phoenix arrived at the facility at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The Cardinals support staff worked with the Rams until 3:30 a.m. to set it up and be ready for meetings. In addition, the Cardinals cleared out 74 total lockers so the Rams had space. For instance, Marvin Harrison Jr.’s locker is now Puka Nacua’s locker.
- Ticket sales have been through the roof, as 52,000 tickets sold in two hours and, by the end of that first day, it was completely sold out. More than 90 suites were sold, as was all luxury seating.
- The team got commitments from over 3,500 gameday workers, an incredible number on short notice. The stadium game entertainment staff has been working around clock to prep all videoboard content and digital assets from SoFi Stadium and bring them to State Farm Stadium. It will look like a Rams home game.
- The Cardinals produced thousands of media and staff credentials to fit into their system.
Above all else, it was the ticket sales that impressed Bidwill. Most neutral site games aren’t like that. Pretty quickly, he realized this was not normal.
“It was pretty clear early within the first 12 minutes,” he said. “It was like the pace of a Taylor Swift-type sale of a concert that was, it was really fast.”
If the Rams win, they may head back to L.A., provided it’s safe to do so. Bidwill said their doors remain open.
“They’re more than welcome to stay,” he said.