The failure of a device meant to protect the power supply to the Superdome caused the Super Bowl blackout, the stadium’s power company said Friday as it took the blame for the outage that brought the game to a halt for more than a half-hour.

Officials of Entergy New Orleans, a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., said the device, called a relay, had been installed to protect the Superdome from a cable failure between the company’s incoming power line and lines that run into the stadium.

Company officials said the device performed without problem during January’s Sugar Bowl and other earlier events.

They said the device has been removed and replacement equipment will be installed.

Officials of the power company and from SMG, the company that manages the stadium for the state, had said earlier this week that they believed the problem originated in the switching gear, which is housed in a building known as “the vault” near the stadium. The Superdome has a direct line feeding from a nearby Entergy power substation. Once the line reaches the vault, it splits into two cables that then go into the Superdome.

I doubt they are happy about it. I laughed at the sight of the logo in the dark too. The MB product brand is associated with a laughing stock power outage. Not exactly what executives lay awake at night hoping for.

The SuperDome definitely choked, and it lasted over 30 minutes.