Cowboys Fans Refuse to Leave Rio After Discovering It’s 25 Degrees Cooler Than Arlington
Hundreds of fans who flew to Brazil for the Ravens game have learned that Rio is 25 degrees cooler than Arlington, and they are not coming back.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Hundreds of Dallas Cowboys fans who flew to Brazil for the team’s game against the Baltimore Ravens at the legendary Maracanã stadium are refusing to come home, after learning that late September in Rio is roughly 25 degrees cooler than late September in Arlington.
“I looked at my weather app and it said 77 and I started crying,” said Travis Pickens of Mansfield, standing on Copacabana Beach in a vintage Aikman jersey, jeans and boots. “Back home it’s 103. I haven’t been 77 degrees since my honeymoon, and that was in a Walmart freezer aisle.”
The game marks the Cowboys’ first regular-season game outside the country in more than a decade, and the NFL’s first in Rio. Fans say the trip was worth it no matter the score.
“Win or lose, I’m here, the breeze is here, and nobody’s charging me $40 to park,” said Tammy Groves of Grand Prairie. “First Cowboys game of my life where I didn’t have to walk a mile across a parking lot hot enough to smoke a brisket.”
Several fans are settling in. Pickens has enrolled in beginner Portuguese, which so far has taught him how to say “one more beer” and “I’m sorry about our owner.” Groves is dating a lifeguard named Thiago. A group of Arlington retirees has put a deposit on a condo and written the team asking whether it could “just play all the home games down here from now on.”
“They’ll come back,” said a bartender at an Arlington sports bar. “Every Cowboys fan comes home eventually. It’s the only way to keep getting disappointed.”
At press time, Pickens had traded his boots to a street vendor for flip-flops and a coconut, and said he’d “think about coming home when it’s under 90 in Dallas,” which meteorologists expect sometime around Thanksgiving.
