Dallas isn’t getting an NFL expansion team, but that hasn’t stopped the city’s mayor from campaigning for one. Eric Johnson recently tweeted his desire for a team other than the Cowboys to play in his city. The Cowboys play in nearby Arlington.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones doused Johnson’s idea Wednesday.
“Well, I like the mayor,” Jones told Calvin Watkins of The Dallas Morning News. “I like him personally, but he doesn’t have the depth. He doesn’t have the knowledge that others have regarding how unique Dallas is and how we enjoy the interest in the Cowboys. He wouldn’t want to water that down as it relates to Dallas if he knew as much, and has spent as much time in sports as I have.”
Even San Antonio, which is 277 miles from AT&T Stadium, would face pushback from Jones if it tried to lure a team to town. So it’s a given the Cowboys would veto any move by any team or potential owner to breach their territorial rights.
Jones said to forget about Johnson’s spitballing: The Cowboys will remain as the NFL’s only franchise in Dallas-Fort Worth.
“That’s correct,” Jones said. “That is correct. . . . You can be rest assured that you would not have the NFL supporting another team because of the kind of value that the game and the NFL receives of having [the] Dallas Cowboys as one of its marquee teams and again, logic tells you [the NFL] wouldn’t want to water that down.”
The Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in professional sports at $6.5 billion, according to Forbes estimates.
