Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys and the Power of Fame

Are you ready for some football? Jerry is.  

The business of business is show business. 

“I thoroughly understood that making something more entertaining and bigger than life, the constant buildup of interest and attention … that’s where the value is.” – Jerry Jones

Right now, the Dallas Cowboys are one of the okay-est football teams in the NFL. At various times throughout their 65-year history, they have been very good and very bad. 

Under coach Tom Landry (1960–1988), the team had 20 consecutive winning seasons. They went to the Super Bowl five times and won two of them (1971, 1978). A producer at NBC Sports gave them the nickname “America’s Team,” and America said, “Yep, that sounds about right.” 

But in 1986, they went 7–9. In 1987, they went 7–8. And they went 3–13 in 1988. It got bleak. The strike didn’t help. The Cowboys couldn’t sell luxury boxes, couldn’t fill the stadium. Attendance was so bad that they had to advertise tickets on television. Owner Harvey “Bum” Bright was losing millions of dollars each year. On a football team. In Texas. In a league with revenue sharing. 

(You might remember that things were even more bleak in Packer Nation before Mike Holmgren, Ron Wolf, Brett Favre and Reggie White showed up. Packer fans of a certain age will never forget the dark times.)

In 1989, a wildcatter from Arkansas named Jerral Wayne Jones strolled into Dallas and woke a sleeping giant. He bought the team, sent beloved coach Tom Landry packing, traded Hershel Walker to Minnesota — one of the most controversial and genius trades in football history — and rebuilt the team with the help of his college roommate and new head coach Jimmy Johnson. 

Were Cowboy fans excited that Jerry and Jimmy were about to turn things around? Uh, no. They were the opposite of that. Jerry got lit up by fans and the media, especially after his first dismal 1-15 season. Did he mind? Maybe. Probably. It must’ve thrown him. Regardless, the Cowboys were awful for a little while longer. And then they got good. 

Thanks to Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Charles Haley and a few others, the Cowboys became terrifyingly good and wildly fun to watch. They won the Super Bowl in 1993, 1994 and 1996. But that was then.

Since 2000, the Cowboys have only won four playoff games. Even the Bears have been to the Super Bowl this century (yeah, we don’t remember it either). And apologies to fans of the Cleveland Browns, but the Cowboys have delivered 24 seasons of varying degrees of “meh.” Maybe 2025 will be their year? It won’t, and it won’t matter because … 

For the 9th straight year, the Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable sports franchise on Earth. 

According to Sportico (the Bloomberg of pro sports), the Cowboys are worth somewhere around $12.8 billion. In 2024, they generated over a billion dollars of revenue. In 2023, they had an operating profit of $510 million, the best in the league by a mile. 

The Dallas Cowboys are more valuable than the Golden State Warriors, the New York Yankees and Manchester United. The Kansas City Chiefs — the team that is engaged to Taylor Swift and has won two of the last three Super Bowls — is #39 in the world. The Packers and FC Barcelona are tied at #20. 

Why? How? Possibly because it is more profitable to put on a show than win the Super Bowl. Definitely, because casual fans (light buyers) are far more valuable than hardcore fans (heavy buyers) simply because there are so many more of them. 

And if you’re not going to win the whole damn thing, and most teams aren’t, it’s better to not be boring about it. Jerry has been a lot of things in his long career — lucky, good, wrong, a salesman, a marketing genius, a football genius, a showman, a huckster, a thorn in the side and a pain in the ass, but Jerry Jones has never been boring. 

Over the next week or two, we’re going to talk about the life and times of Jerry Jones through the lens of marketing effectiveness. Because football season is finally here, and he built the modern game. Because Jerry and the Cowboys have been able to capture more than a reasonable amount of attention for a team that has been just okay for a very long time. Also, the new Netflix documentary is really great. 

See you next time. 

Sources!

1. Dallas Cowboys: Jerry Jones stars in Netflix show 29 years after last Super Bowl win – BBC Sport 
2. How Jerry Jones Built the $10 Billion Dallas Cowboys – Sportico
3. Why Your Team Sucks 2025: Dallas Cowboys – Defector
4. Are Jerry Jones’ fan tours a hurdle to a Cowboys Super Bowl? – ESPN 
5. The Dallas Cowboys Always Win the Battle for Attention – The New York Times 
6. Dallas Cowboys: Jerry Jones stars in Netflix show 29 years after last Super Bowl win – BBC Sport 
7. Cowboys top list of most valuable NFL franchises with valuation over $12 billion as all teams see major rise – CBSSports.com 
8. Forbes list of the most valuable sports teams – Wikipedia
9. Titletown? Not in the ’70s and ’80s. The Packers were a total mess – Yahoo!