The Life and Times and Fame of Jerry Jones

The show is bigger than the game.

“The Cowboys are a soap opera 365 days a year. When it gets slow, I’ll stir it up. I do believe if we’re not being looked at, then I’ll do my part to get us looked at.” – Jerry Jones

Quick! Who owns the Arizona Cardinals? If you guessed Ken Kendrick, you’re really close. Ken owns the Arizona Diamondbacks. The answer is Michael Bidwill, the former federal prosecutor who inherited the team from his dad. And if you knew that, you know way more about football than most people. Or you’re a fan of the Arizona Cardinals. Or you happen to know Michael Bidwill. Or all three. 

Everybody knows who owns the Dallas Cowboys. 

Jerral Wayne Jones Sr was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1942. When he was very small, his parents moved the family to North Little Rock, Arkansas. As a kid, Jerry learned a little something about the power of showmanship while working in his family’s grocery store. 

His dad, Pat, had built a stage in the back of the store. Bands and other musical acts would perform while shoppers filled their carts. The performances were also broadcast on a local radio station. Weird? Sure. It was unusual, but the shows brought people into the store, which was obviously the point.

According to Wikipedia, Pat later became the head of a successful insurance company in Missouri. Jerry went to the University of Arkansas, where he was co-captain of the 1964 national championship football team. After college, Jerry borrowed $1 million from Jimmy Hoffa’s (?!?!) Teamsters and tried to open a string of Shakey’s Pizza Parlors. That didn’t go well, so Jerry became an executive in his father’s company. Then he bet big and got wildly lucky as an oilman, which is how he made the money he needed to buy the Dallas Cowboys. 

When Jerry bought the team in 1989, the Cowboys were a sleeping giant. Under coach Tom Landry, America’s Team was often good. Sometimes they were great. But the Cowboys hadn’t had a winning season in a few years. All told, they were losing millions of dollars every year. 

Jerry, of course, had to fix his immediate revenue problems. He managed to sell 90% of the luxury boxes and somehow convinced the local government to allow him to sell beer at the stadium, which opened a lucrative new revenue stream. He had staunched the bleeding somewhat, but football had a bigger problem that Jerry would eventually solve almost by himself. 

Football itself was a sleeping giant. Believe it or not, football used to be pretty damn boring, especially for casual fans. Football was a Very Serious™ game played and coached by Very Serious™ men. It was actually kind of impossible to be a casual fan. You were either all in on the game or you weren’t, and there just wasn’t much else to enjoy.  

Even the Super Bowl Halftime Show usually featured college marching bands and/or the gallingly effervescent Up with People. No shade to college marching bands, but they are not Prince. The Cowboys were America’s Team because they were generally good at playing the Very Serious™ game of football, not because they were especially fun. 

The game itself was the product. The game was the show. It was the fan experience. If your team was losing most of the time, it was a pretty crappy experience. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Cowboys fans decided they had better things to do than watch their team be bad.

Jerry has always known that the show is more important than the game. It’s how you draw casual fans in and keep them in when the team is struggling. Like light buyers, casual fans are more valuable because there are more of them. First, you gotta reach them.

How? By showing up where they are. It’s easy for fans in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to watch the Cowboys. And if your team happens to play in the NFC East, you’re gonna see a lot of them. But the NFC East isn’t most people. 

Reach is critical, and Jerry has always made it much easier for the rest of America to watch the Cowboys. “America’s Team” has appeared on Monday Night Football a record 85 times. On average, the Cowboys appear in more nationally televised games, including the games on Thanksgiving and Christmas, than any other team in the NFL. Okay, why?

Jerry is one of the most powerful owners in the league, and he can exert a non-zero amount of influence on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. So maybe he’s twisting Goodell’s arm. But the Cowboys are also way more famous than, say, the Jacksonville Jaguars. You might love or hate the Cowboys. No one outside Jacksonville has any thoughts or feelings about the Jags whatsoever. 

So you’re more likely to tune in if the Cowboys are playing. Win or lose, Jerry, the NFL, the networks and advertisers win.

What else? Gossip. Rumors. Intrigue. On and off the field, Jerry is a drama goblin. He’s pretty much the only owner who will regularly get behind a microphone and say whatever the hell is on his mind. Jerry knows that every time he makes a decision (or doesn’t), everyone in sports media and Cowboy Nation loses their minds. The narrative tornado that swirls around him doesn’t always have the nicest stories to tell, but it gets everybody talking. 

Trading Micah Parsons was an objectively terrible football move. Trading him specifically to a conference rival like the Packers was complete genius because of the hornet’s nest of speculation, handwringing and endless takes he kicked over. Also, the Cowboys play the Packers in a prime-time game in Dallas on September 28th, and it will be a ratings monster. Obviously, we can’t know if Jerry made the trade with that particular game in mind, but we wouldn’t put it past him. Again, everybody wins. Except Dallas fans, of course. 

If Jerry had traded Parsons to, say, the Tennessee Titans, no one outside of Cowboy Nation would’ve cared, because the rest of America can barely remember the Titans exist. 

Also? Spectacle. A wild, over-the-top fan experience that starts from the moment you enter the stadium parking lot. Whether the Cowboys win or lose, you’re gonna have a good time at AT&T Stadium. Again, the show is always bigger than the game. 

And? He’s not the only owner with an IMDb page, but Jerry’s is the most fun. He’s appeared on “Arli$$” three times and “Entourage” twice. Jerry was on an episode of “Coach,” the old Craig T. Nelson sitcom. Jerry appeared in “Landman” and “The League”. He appeared in a remake of the TV show “Dallas.” He’s been in commercials for Monday Night Football, Pepsi and something called Diet Pepsi MAX. And, of course, there’s the new series about Jerry starring Jerry on Netflix. 

Oh, and he turned the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader tryouts into a reality show. 

Yes, part of the reason the Cowboys are so wealthy is that Jerry has made some resoundingly astute business decisions. But his biggest contribution to the league has always been his relentless showmanship. Yes, the two are very much related.

So what does this mean for you? 

Long before Vince Lombardi borrowed those hallowed words, UCLA coach Red Sanders said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” Sanders was talking about the game of football. Jerry is winning the fame game.  

Yes, the game of football is important. The Cowboys might not be where they are without Jimmy Johnson, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith and Charles Haley. People still have an emotional connection to that team, but it was a long time ago, and both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat have faded into nostalgia..

Today, the Cowboys are fine. Their recent 12-5 seasons under Mike McCarthy didn’t amount to much, but they were winning seasons. Last year, the Cowboys weren’t great. In a sea of mediocre football — and there was plenty of mediocre football last year — the Cowboys still stand out. Not because they play great football, but because they consistently put on a show. 

Does that mean you should churn out a mediocre product and shout wildly and often about it? No. Well, sort of. Create the best possible product you can. Create a spectacle and reach as many people as possible. Build your own brand of showmanship. Entertain people, and they will love you for it. Or, if you’re Jerry Jones, some of them will not love you for it. But if you’re Jerry Jones, you won’t care. You’ll be laughing. 

Jerry was the first NFL owner to truly understand that the show is bigger and more profitable than the game. Because of his Texas-sized personality and preternatural ability to generate spectacle, Jerry Jones has been able to drive incredible growth for the Dallas Cowboys at every turn. 

We’ll 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