How Jerry Jones Turned the Cowboys Into a Global Brand

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0:41All right, so we've taken this show many places, but this is our first time in Dallas at the Star. This is the brainchild of the Jones family, and we're talking to the man himself, Jerry Jones. Jerry's my North Star as an owner, and what he's done with this franchise, taking it where he bought it from to where it is today, pretty incredible. No one's done it better. Literally, no one has built a more valuable sports franchise on the planet. $13 million is the estimated value of the Dallas Cowboys. Lots of lessons that we're going to learn from Jerry Jones. I can't wait. Let's do it.

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1:53Jerry Jones, thank you so much for having us here in Texas. Well, first of all, I'm proud you are here. We're overlooking the field. And I'm kind of proud of what's around the field as well with our stars. So thanks for coming to the star. Great to be with both of you. And Alex, I'm so proud to see my neighbor, my own neighbor back here in Dallas. That's right. So, Alex, I'm going to let you kick it off. Yeah. So, you know, Jace, when I first decided that I wanted to own a team, this is something I've been dreaming about for forever and ever since I was a teenager. But of course, I come from very humble beginnings.

2:28But I said, there's one owner I must talk to. And that's Mr. Jerry Jones. And I made a call to Charlotte. It was around COVID time. We were taking a run at the Mets. Jerry's daughter, Charlotte Jones. Yeah, Charlotte Jones. I said, boy, I tell you, maybe in a couple weeks, she'll get Mr. Jones on because he's very busy. And Charlotte hits me up right back. Jerry, we'd love to talk to you. How's Wednesday at two o 'clock? I said, done. And I thought it was going to be 15 minutes. And boy, I tell you what, 90 minutes later, I have like pages and pages of notes. And he gave me, you gave me the most incredible advice that I'll never forget.

3:02And for that, I'm very grateful. So that call really meant a lot to me. And a lot of what you told me, along with what I learned from George Steinbrenners and others that I respect and admire, I think about that as an owner today of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx. So thank you for that. Well, congratulations. And, you know, the minute that you told me you were going to get involved at the ownership level, it just made all the sense in the world. The fact that you had always wanted to be in ownership says it all as well, because in my mind, there is a connection. It's a passion.

3:38You can call it competitiveness, but it's accomplishing things that are hard to do. But you know, A-Rod, you mentioned George Steinbruner. And my early days with the Cowboys, I'd get a nice note and always look forward to it. And it would be from him. And he would give me, I call them my sweet nothings. I put them in a file that I had that for. But it were daily encouragements because there was a lot of criticism because of the way that we bought the Cowboys, changed the coaches out, and frankly did a lot of changes. Well, of all the people in the world to be getting those nice, encouraging notes that, boy, stick in there, keep it going.

4:23I've got a legacy there. And we, George Steinbruner, the family, and my family set up a company called Legends. And that was, of course, many years later. And I got to meet with him several times as we were talking about Legends. And Legends serves many, many sports. And it serves facilities in the process of really fan engagement. I'll never forget, though. George Steinbruner told the group when we met, he said, I don't need anything written down. You don't spend any money or time on that contract over there. He and I will shake hands and we'll have all we need to make this business work. So, Jerry, you know, you mentioned you getting into ownership and a lot that led to that.

5:12You know, when Alex calls you and says he's going to, you know, buy into the NBA and the WNBA, no one would doubt that that was a good deal. When you bought the Dallas Cowboys, people thought you were insane, that people thought it was a bad business and that you were overpaying. What gave you the certitude that this was a good deal? Well, it truly was passion. And just as passion can help you in many aspects of life, I really didn't see those obvious obstacles. I just didn't see them. Now you say, well, can't you see losing a million dollars a month? Are you blind? How much were you drinking when you bought the Cowboys?

5:59Well, the point is I looked for ways, and this is common. I looked for ways that were maybe a little ambitious, but I looked for ways to solve every one of those problems. And while there may have been long odds, there may have been a little imagination in those ways. I took those problems and I thought I had a solution as to how to address them. That's what you will do when you want to do it real bad. And yes, the Cowboys, it was daunting, but the point is that it was always there, the interest in becoming involved and becoming involved in a way that, let's say, unlike A-Rod, becoming in a way that didn't swing the bat or didn't make the block, which I certainly appreciated as a great fan, but becoming involved in a way that would make it better.

6:56I found no sports franchise anywhere in the world that was making any money. You see, sports had been a great, great portrayer of what sports is about. It's called publicity. Well, the difference in publicity, in my point of view, than marketing is that publicity has great audiences. It has great, if you will, interest and can create interest. Marketing is when you take that publicity and you bring it home and set up a plan to monetize some of it and go out and get that and have enough coming back in to go again. That's called a business model. Well, sports had not only the great passion and the natural instincts of competing in everybody and the appreciation of people that do, But sports had this massive, massive publicity and massive understanding, but yet it had no business model to make it call marketing where you could bring back a little and go again.

8:07Right. That was totally necessary for me because I couldn't go again. Now, what happened with me was, candidly, is that the amount of money I had wasn't what was needed. But because the NFL and the Cowboys were really slow, we were really down and out financially, frankly. Because of that, then the NFL knew they had a problem. The bankers didn't worry about me because they didn't loan anything on the Cowboys. The bankers loaned it on a receivable that I had. And so the approval of me getting through the door and still not having any money left to go buy the general partners that I had agreed under contract to go buy out, but I didn't have the money to go do that.

8:52So Jay, along those lines, so go back to 1989, you're losing a million dollars per month. Now, I heard you also say that you may have wanted to buy a business that was cash flowing to offset some of those losses. As you think about filling those holes, was that stressful? And what was your strategy? Walk us through that. On a personal basis, I had such pride and such an experience in sport when I was in college. And my senior year at Arkansas, we won the national championship. Well, I had been schooled in selling insurance. I could gnaw that leg off the chair selling. But what I hadn't done was been really schooled in financial.

9:32And so I thought because I could tell a good story and could borrow all that money that that was the way to go. And so my first year or two out of college, I borrowed more money than you could even count. And my first year out of school, I think my commissions were$30 ,000. My interest was$150 ,000 to give you an idea how over my skis I had gotten. It took me years. It took my Jean, my wife, getting her purse taken out of her hands and cards, credit cards cut in two. It took the bill players coming. So I had really gotten a lesson in how not to do it as far as buying something. Well, I managed to come through that, and it was the greatest education that I'd ever had.

10:23Well, then I was very fortunate and got some real finances with the oil and gas business. After all that butt kicking that I got for getting out over my skis, after all of that, to show you how passionate or crazy I was, after going through that, thinking that the old financial death had been at Ray, I turned around and bought the Dallas Cowboys. That shows you how much passion was involved. But I remember when we talked, Alex, I said, listen, I said, nothing, nothing can stand in the way of passion. So I think Alex would probably validate this, that when he goes to buy a team, part of the advice that he gets is sit, don't make any big moves, no sudden moves, don't get rid of a bunch of people right away.

11:15You didn't follow that advice. Basically, the minute you come in, you get rid of this legendary coach. You fired everybody from the guy announcing the public announcements to the head of publicity and the general manager. Why? What did you see that was so wrong with them that you felt like you immediately had to act? You have to assume when you buy something that who you buy it from knows what it's worth like it is. Give them credit, or certainly their creditors might know. They know what the business is. So a big mistake is not to automatically build in, know that you've got to change the scenery if you pay what you're going to pay.

12:04assume they're getting top dollar and have taken it when they got your money. So you have to really go in thinking change. When it was as dramatically out of culture as the Cowboys were, I had to have radical change and I had to do it yesterday. So there was an urgency. You didn't have time to have a good time, so to speak. That plus, again, the fact that I can't emphasize enough, stuff, I felt like Herschel Walker running through the line. It was just bouncing off of me. There were all kinds of hurdles that were popping. And of course, where was the bad day? Well, I couldn't have a bad day because I was getting to do something that I'd wanted to do all my life.

12:49And that ruled the day. So one of the other most seminal deals that you make is, is you mentioned Herschel Walker, got rid of him. You traded him. It turns out to be arguably one of the most brilliant trades in the history of football. Did not seem that way at the time. Talk us through that decision. If you look at making change, and certainly Herschel Walker was a change, the best player we had, and it was well known. In this particular case, you were kind of new on the block. So you automatically didn't know what you were doing. Always, when it's an accomplished name, whether it's sport or otherwise, always, when you get a divorce there, it's going to look bad for the one that made the decision.

13:45Always. There's no question. If you can't handle that, then don't make the trade. Or if you can't anticipate that, don't make the trade. That's alive and well. But what it caused you to do is not just the tangible consideration you got, which at that time were draft picks. You didn't have a cap at that time, but you had those draft picks, and that was the tangible. What those trades did, what those picks did, was allow us to use them not only for using them in the draft, but we used them to trade. trade. And we did it with, I'm not going to say randomness, but we did it with reckless abandon, if you want to.

14:29It caused you to be more of a player because it was like going to Las Vegas with money in your pocket. And I don't think there's any question that I'm willing to take risk in those early days after having acquired the Cowboys that we built players, built our roster. I think the ability to cut and shoot was a big deal. I've heard you talk about ambiguity. I think about it from the lens of sports. Jerry, there's some guys that I've played with that are free agents, and they don't know when that next check's coming from or where it's coming from. And you create a 300 hitter, becomes a 215 hitter.

15:06A guy that hits 30 home runs hits 18 home runs because of the nerves. The same is true in business. but you have this ability to not knowing what's going to happen next to perform at a high level. Do you believe that's true? And where does that come from if it is true? Well, I know it's true in my situation, but I think it's very true. And some of the greatest people that have ever been involved in the professions or business, they don't function as well if they don't know what's going to happen at the end of the week, especially financially. They need to know that so that they can get on with their business of being as excellent as they are.

15:48On the other hand, there are some people that the ambiguity that's out there of not knowing what your check is, they're better than if they knew what the check was going to be. They're more clever. They're more cunning. They're more – they've just got more skill and are willing to exert it. I call that tolerance for ambiguity. Tolerance for ambiguity. And the classic, at least known story, was the famous riverboat gambler. Charming, mustache, sitting there. The next card up is going to get him thrown off the boat or he's going to own the boat. Now, that's when he's the best that he is in his life.

16:34And, of course, he's gotten thrown off that boat before, and he's won the boat a few times. The difference is, though, I'll bet you not one of those charming son of a guns didn't know how to swim. Now, you can play that hand, but you better know how to swim because you're going to get thrown off the boat a little bit. You've gotten thrown off the boat. A little bit. I have to. I was going to say, you guys have been thrown off the boats together.

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17:47So I do want to, you know, move ahead a little bit chronologically because one of the ways that you step out is with your dealmaking. You know, you come in, you're part of this club, a club that a lot of people especially now want to be a part of. and NFL has its way of doing business. And you at some point decide that you might be able to do this a little bit better. And I'm thinking specifically the Nike deal. You know, this is a Nike athlete right here. Everybody remembers you and Phil Knight walking out on that field. How does that deal come about? How do you decide to do that knowing that the NFL, they've got Reebok, they're good.

18:27You decide you can do something better. I had known a great coach named Eddie Sutton, and he had told me about Phil Knight as a young man bringing his things to where he was coaching in college and selling it out of the trunk, that Phil Knight had had that path to where he was. But the thing that was obvious to me was that he took a shoe or he took performance or perspective performance mentally in a shoe. And he did such a good job of telling the story with it that he made me think if I could put the shoe on, I could run faster. Right, right. And that so hit home with me relative to what sports is about, but really can be accentuated.

19:15It truly is the story. When you see a rare player, a rare athlete, there's so much more that's going on there with that rare athlete. And just the story of what's making him rare, comparing him to the other players or other competition. I call it one and one is three. And I apply that to everything, whether it's a business decision. One and one is three in sports, not two, but three. And it's because that three is imagination. That three is putting yourself in a way, having yourself hit the home run or having yourself there when you're watching or thinking about it. That area right there is an intangible.

20:08because it isn't intangible. That's where the biggest margins are in business. Not down here where everybody's doing it and the engineers are working on it. They've got it whittled down to right there. This area right here, that imagineering, that imagination part that makes one and one three is where the margins are and frankly, where the glory is. I spent my 25-year career with Nike and Phil Knight was just the most amazing partner. and it delighted me when you made that move. But my question is, when you come up with that idea at home, you're thinking in the couch or wherever, from the time you call Phil Knight, how long did it take?

20:48And how do those conversations go? Are you pitching your idea of why there's a great marriage? How does that go if you can give us a little color? I visited with him. My wife, Jean, and son, Jerry, went to their headquarters. I'll never forget, I was visiting with a couple of his folks about what this might look like. And he came in, and we had gotten pretty far along. And he looked over at me, I'll never forget it, and he said, I have never paid so much for nothing in my life. But he said, this thing or something about it, I like it. When we initially made our deal, he couldn't use Cowboys or he couldn't use the Star.

21:32We just did the deal with the stadium. Now, as Charlotte said, she Niked to the stadium. We made that stadium look like it was Nike headquarters out there. But we didn't do it with the team. We basically brought the team out in no colors and no sponsor at all. But when we got to New York, we were playing the Giants, and that's when we made this announcement. And at that time, when we walked out on the field, I had a suit on, but I had the Nike tennis shoes on. And Phil walked out with me, and I had the Nike hat on. And we had met earlier with Al Michaels, and we had met with Dan Deardorff, and we had met in the dressing room.

22:18And I explained to them what this was about and where the edge was regarding the NFL and where it was regarding Nike and the Cowboys that made it a contentious thing. I'll never forget how Michael said, now, we may have, if we have a close game here, we might not get much to this in the second half. Well, we had quite a lead, the Cowboys did, going into halftime. So they spent that entire half talking about this relationship and the NFL and what might occur. That next morning, Phil called me, and he said, I have never had such a bang for my buck in your life when he called. And I'll tell you, from that time on, I could walk down the streets in New York.

23:06I could be in Chicago, and you'd have drivers and cars and whatever. You just point to Nike and say, go get them. So the controversy, the controversy, if you will, look out now, the controversy created also a huge interest when otherwise it might just been some commercial issue, but created a huge interest. And, of course, the potential result relative to my relationship with the NFL and that type thing, that got a little touchy there for a little while. But in general, I can't say enough about Phil and his buying into the idea of taking a team. Now, he obviously, to this day, wants to be a part of Nike and the NFL, and it's as it should be.

24:03But when it's the thing to do, you can do both. Team, league. Take everything you say, and I believe it. And yet, Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner at the time, was like, what's Jones doing down here? We've got this deal. What makes him think that he can go and do this? Did you have that in your mind? Well, I had and have all the respect in the world for Paul Tagliabue. But I was operating on different gasoline. I had the ultimate. They had to come through me. It was my fanny that was going to get put out on the street. If the Cowboys didn't make more sense financially. And if something happened to the Cowboys, frankly, it had a good chance of happening to others in the NFL, other teams in the NFL.

24:52And so I didn't see a solution to get in line, get in sync, get right in with the other, at that time, 29 teams, 30 teams. I didn't see that answer either because I hadn't found that answer to do that. And so, candidly, it was comfortable. comfortable. I'm not going to say it's comfortable, but it was inspirational to think that I was doing something about the problem. And the way that I was doing something about it, maybe for everybody, maybe not. First, I was interested in what it did for the Cowboys. And I knew good and well, some of the things I was suggesting that I was getting criticized for were in the best interest of the Cowboys.

25:35And I really thought they were in the best interest of the NFL. I think the clubs and the great markets they're in around this country. They have all of the ability in the world to promote their brands and to be imaginative in terms of involving fans and products or services. And I think they have the ability to get involved more than you do at one central place. But on the other hand, I thought the NFL as a whole had a fabulous inventory of things to engage companies and services. And they do very much. It's called Super Bowl. It's called the game itself. And so picture, if you will, a circle that's got all of the clubs in it.

26:19And then you have the NFL. Well, I could see each club in their areas of marketing and making their deal with Nike. And then I could see the NFL having a deal if Nike, yes, but maybe with a competing competing entity. That fundamentally was what it was all about. Right. Right. Because, I mean, essentially what happens, you know, for those who aren't as familiar with it is they sue you. You counter. I mean, contentious. It goes it gets real contentious. It gets litigious. Did you know that that was how this was ultimately going to get settled? You knew there would be a fight. Well, first of all, frankly, and I had no other way to think about it.

27:01The amount the league sued me for immediately, they owned the Cowboys. Right. $300 million, right? $300 million at the time. And I told you that I'd spent it all and didn't have the ultimate figure was to buy the Cowboys. And so it was dramatic for me and traumatic for me, but caused me to certainly grow, if you will, buck up, sleep less, but sharpen up. And it was an experience that I think we used as a platform again in years as years have gone by and really have benefited from that more ways than just a shot of juice for the sponsorship area. I didn't know that buying the Cowboys, by the way.

27:56I didn't see that at all. I did see and say, look, I'm going to have to find something or I'm going to have a lost leader of millions of dollars for the rest of my life. So I'm going to need to go get something to associate the Cowboys with that can help me tow the bill, tow the freight for owning the Cowboys. Jerry, we were sitting at a game, at a Cowboy game, maybe three, four years ago. and you said to me, Alex, I'm around 79, maybe 80, and I work harder today than when I was 39 or 49. Where do you get that work ethic from? Because it's remarkable. You haven't slowed down one bit. Well, first of all, we were talking earlier, and when you bought the 10, you were 50.

28:38If you could possibly, from 50 to my age today, if you could have 10 % of the fun that I've had over the last 30 years. I'll take five. Ten for, okay, take five of it, I promise you. There's no way to measure what life has been since touching sport and touching the Dallas Cowboys. But it's given me such an inspirational base that it's caused me to do things and really things that aren't necessarily directly associated at all with the Cowboys. And the moral of the story, the lesson is, if you've got a dream or if you've got something that you're passionate about, boy, give your passion a whole lot of value in terms of putting your assets together to go do it.