Jerry Jones knows he would get a lot of money if he decided to sell the Dallas Cowboys. In an interview with Peter King of NBC Sports, Jones said he could sell the Cowboys for “more than $10 billion.” But the 79-year-old owner made it clear that wouldn’t happen because “he would never sell the Cowboys.”
“Let me make this very clear,” he told King, per CBS Sports. “I’ll say it definitively. I will never do it. I will never sell the Cowboys. Ever.” Jones became the owner of the Cowboys in 1989, purchasing the team for $150 million, which was a record at the time. According to Forbes, the Cowboys are one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world as they value at $6.5 billion. But Marc Ganis — a business consultant around the NFL — told King that Jones could get $8.5 billion if he were to sell the team.
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“Back then,” Jones said, “Donald Trump said he felt sorry for the guy who bought the Dallas Cowboys. He called it ‘reckless crazy.’ And we really were America’s Team, because the FDIC owned 5 percent of the franchise. Every day, my motivation was simply to survive. I danced with the devil, and it created an edge with me. I didn’t want Jimmy Johnson to f— with me because I just lost my tolerance after what I went through in my early days.
“So how does it feel to see some of these values now, and see the value of the Dallas Cowboys now? Just go back to the early days, and you can see how the game has improved and become such a part of American life. Did you know that 7 percent of fans have ever gone to an NFL stadium? The rest fell in love with it through the viewing of the games. The pageantry, the aura, the interest of a fan base, the fact that an Al Michaels can relay the excitement of the game to a fan base.”
The Cowboys have had success under Jones, winning three Super Bowls in the 1990s. They have also won the NFC East 12 times since and reached the playoffs 16 times since 1989. Along with being the owner, Jones is the Cowboys’ team president and general manager while his son, Stephen, is the CEO.
