The Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in all of sports. Would Jerry ever consider selling?
DALLAS — Mark Cuban sold his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks. The Buss family offloaded the Los Angeles Lakers. The Denver Broncos’ longtime owners moved on from the franchise in a record deal just three years ago.
Don’t expect Jerry Jones or his family to join those ranks anytime soon, or ever.
In a sit-down interview with the Dallas Cowboys owner on Sunday night, WFAA’s Joe Trahan posed that very question: Given the recent sales of major sports franchises, would Jerry ever consider selling the Cowboys?
“Never,” Jones quickly answered. “I coveted getting a chance to be a part of sports. I never really dared to think it might be a team like the Dallas Cowboys. And when I got close, I did some of the most risky things I’ve ever done in my life, or anybody I’ve ever seen do in their life, to somehow get to be a part of the Dallas Cowboys. If you think in my mind, breath or heart that not having the Cowboys could ever enter my mind, you’re wrong. [Nobody] but us will have the Cowboys.”
But what about when Jones isn’t here? It’s a fair question to consider for the 82-year-old, although he’s appearing as spry as ever at training camp.
The Broncos and Lakers were sold by the children of those franchises’ owners after they had passed.
Jones said he’s already put a plan in place to prevent the Cowboys from leaving the family.
“The reason is,” he said, “from the day I got here, my partners have been my children. Stephen, Charlotte, Jerry Jr. But as time has evolved, candidly, a lot of things on the positive that I’ve gotten credit for were, more likely than not, their ideas and frankly they executed it during that time … They are the epitome of structuring a plan of what happens if I get hit by a car.”
While Jones called his initial purchase of the Cowboys “one of the most foolish things that had ever been done,” it was certainly a move that paid off. He bought the team in 1989 for $140 million, a minuscule price in today’s terms, even accounting for inflation. At the time, as Jones noted, the Cowboys, despite being “America’s Team,” were losing $1 million a month.
Today, the Cowboys are estimated to be worth more than $10 billion, the most in all of professional sports. And if the Cowboys were to be sold, the actual purchase price would likely be much higher than $10 billion, considering that’s what the Lakers were reportedly sold for.
But that’s a hypothetical not worth bothering to consider, according to Jerry Jones.