Jerry Jones loves to tell a good story. He takes listeners along for a ride, mixing in his unique aphorisms as he shares lessons on business and life. Few business stories are as good as his tenure as the owner of the Dallas Cowboys.
This week marks the 36th anniversary of Jones buying the Cowboys and its stadium for $150 million, including unfunded liabilities. Today, it is the most valuable sports franchise on the planet, worth $10.32 billion.
The NFL and Cowboys of the 1980s were a far cry from where the league and team sit today. The NFL had a pair of in-season work stoppages in 1982 and 1987 that caused lost games and replacement players. The league faced challenges from the upstart United States Football League and drug abuse among players. The NFL was not a TV juggernaut, and Fox wasn’t launched until late 1986. Each NFL team made roughly $15 million a year from TV during the decade.
The Cowboys were dubbed America’s Team in the 1970s when they won a pair of Super Bowls, but 1986 kicked off a string of five straight losing seasons. By 1989, the U.S. government owned 13% of the team due to seizures during the Savings & Loans crisis, and the Cowboys were losing $1 million per month.
Enter Jones.
The oil wildcatter was nearly run out of town his first day on the job when he fired Tom Landry, who had been the head coach since the club’s inception in 1960. But the team turned the corner on the field behind “The Triplets” of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, who won three Super Bowls over four seasons starting in 1992.
Off the field, Jones revolutionized how NFL teams approached sponsorships, licensing, stadiums, hospitality and real estate. Before 1995, the league controlled almost all sponsor inventory until Jones challenged the system. He announced stadium deals with American Express, Nike and Pepsi to get around NFL restrictions on team deals.
“The success of the league has really been to operate as a partnership,” Paul Tagliabue, then-NFL commissioner said as Jones carved his own path. The league sued Jones, who then countersued. A year later, both sides dropped their lawsuits, and the Cowboys kept their deals.
Last year, the Cowboys had roughly $250 million in sponsor revenue from partnerships with brands such as AT&T, Miller Lite, Bank of America, American Airlines and Ford Motor. Overall, the 32 NFL teams collectively generated an estimated $2.5 billion in sponsor revenue.
In 2002, the Cowboys opted out of the league’s shared merchandise system. They still have to kick back their allotted percentage into the league system that shares revenue equally, but the Cowboys merch business has grown much faster than the league overall and likely approached $200 million in revenue last year from their licensed goods.
AT&T Stadium opened in 2009, but an average of 1,500 fans per day still pay at least $40 for a guided tour that generates nearly $10 million in yearly revenue, Jones is spending $300 million to upgrade the venue ahead of the 2026 World Cup. The stadium has played host to a slew of marquee events in college football, soccer, boxing, WWE and music.
The Cowboys’ 91-acre, $1.5 billion headquarters and practice facility, The Star, opened in 2016 and expanded the team’s real estate empire with its mixed-use development. The Star also provided more branding and sponsorship opportunities for the club. The downside: Some players have grumbled about being gawked at by fans on the grounds.
Broadening their horizons even further, the Cowboys and New York Yankees launched hospitality company Legends to run concessions at their venues in 2008, and the venture now works with several hundred clients globally across every major sports league.
In 2022, the Cowboys became just the second sports team in the world after LaLiga’s Barcelona to generate $1 billion in revenue in a single season. And unlike in European soccer, the NFL’s salary cap ensures every team is profitable. The Cowboys’ estimated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $510 million in 2023 were nearly double the next most profitable team (the New England Patriots).
The postseason wins have dried up for Dallas since The Triplets retired, and the Cowboys have the NFC’s longest conference championship-game drought at 29 seasons—the Chicago Bears are next at 14 seasons. But Jones is a clear winner off the field. The value of the team is up 69-fold, compared to 21x for the S&P 500 over the same time.
Beyond the wins on and off the field, the added bonus for Jones over the past three decades-plus has been working with his children, Stephen, Charlotte and Jerry Jr. In January, the oilman-turned-team owner shared the importance of family during a cameo on the Paramount+ series, Landman.
“I’m pretty proud of them Cowboys, and I’m pretty proud of the stuff we’ve done in oil and gas,” Jones said during his four-minute monologue. “It pales in comparison to how proud I am to have lived my life working with my kids.”
