As fans and media await the start of the NFL season, rumors and stories start to grow legs that normally wouldn’t be taken seriously during the season. The latest story is that of a possible second NFL franchise setting up shop in Dallas, Texas.
Yup, that’s right, “Big D,” where Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys reside. They say “everything is bigger in Texas,” but not big enough for two football teams in Dallas.
Or is it?
According to Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson it needs to happen.
The answer is Dallas. Why? We are about to pass the Chicago metro and become the #3 metro in the US, which would make us the largest US metro WITHOUT 2 teams. Football is king here. Dallas needs an expansion team and we would be able to sustain 2 @NFL teams better than LA or NY. https://t.co/ikG0oeZq4T
— Mayor Eric L. Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) May 5, 2022
Shannon Sharpe was quick to offer a rebuttal about that prognostication. Sharpe thinks that is a pipe dream that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would never allow.
“Zero. Jerry Jones is not letting that happen. What we’ve seen from the NFL is that they went back to instead of expanding once they went to Jacksonville, and once they went back to Carolina. What we saw is them go back to cities that had lost their franchises. We saw them go back to Houston. We saw them go back to Cleveland. They ended up putting a team back in Baltimore. The likelihood of them going to a city that’s already (up). And in Dallas. This is not L.A. In L.A. you have 40 million people. And Dallas is not New York.”
Jones Holds The Cards As Cowboys Owner
Jones has owned the Cowboys since 1989. In that time frame he’s transformed “America’s Team” into the most valuable sports franchise in the world, valued at $5.7 billion. They overtook soccer power Real Madrid in 2016.
The Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable sports team in the world (Worth $4 billion) https://t.co/Zzr42b7z2R pic.twitter.com/NuXRlA2FHb
— Forbes (@Forbes) July 13, 2016
Power is money and money is power, which means Jones would have right of refusal as to another franchise coming to Dallas. The Houston Texans became a franchise in 2002, and the aforementioned Jones played an intricate role in the team’s creation.
The name Texans was actually owned by Jones, and it sounded better than the others they were choosing from, such as Bobcats, Stallions and Wildcatters. While Texans was on the list, they’d need approval from J.J. to get it done.
The Cowboys are now worth 52 TIMES more than they were worth when Jerry Jones bought them 32 years ago, factoring for inflation. https://t.co/kSNnc0ekZq
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 8, 2021
In a 2018 radio interview with 105.3 The Fan, Jones went into detail about how the Texans name came to fruition.
“I feel a kinship there,” Jones said. “I really did everything I could do to get a team back into Houston. We are talking about this team, the Texans.”
“I had the actual rights in the sports for ‘Texans.’ I gave that to Bob McNair and the Texans and they decided that was the name they wanted to use.”
Jones had purchased the rights to the Texans name for his Arena Football League franchise but opted for the Dallas Desperados.
Jones Was Okay With That Because It Was Houston
Jones, one of America’s elite business minds, was quick to OK the use of the Texans name and more than likely received a nice bag for relinquishing the name rights. Most important, the team is located in Houston and doesn’t affect any of Jones’ Cowboys revenue in Dallas-Fort Worth, Arlington or Frisco, Texas — places Jerry has domain.
Dallas won’t have two teams like New York or Los Angeles, and Jerry is in no rush to share a stadium with any other franchise. That ain’t happening on Jerry’s watch.
