GLENDALE, Ariz. — When country legend Garth Brooks takes the stage in his Phoenix-area concert Saturday night, it will be in front of a record-breaking crowd.
More than 75,000 people are expected to attend the sold-out show at State Farm Stadium, which will make the concert the biggest event at the stadium after the BCS National Championship game in 2011.
It will also be the largest crowd to attend a musical event indoors in Arizona history.
To put that in perspective, the average home game attendance at the stadium for the Arizona Cardinals in 2018 was 62,013.
Brooks said during a Friday news conference that he got to joke around with Larry Fitzgerald about those numbers.
"And so I told him, I said, 'You know what your problem is, Fitz?' He says, 'What?' I said, 'You only put 22 people on the field. We got 10,000 out there on the field,'" Brooks said.
There will be even more people packed into the stadium for the Garth Brooks concert than when the venue hosted Super Bowl XLII in 2008, which had a paid attendance crowd of 71,101.
Brooks said the stadium roof will be open during the concert for the best sound quality.