Jerry Jones does what he has always done: try to make money. He’s damn good at it. He is a billionaire for many reasons: business acumen, happiness, fearlessness and the willingness to do things like raise the price of natural gas at a time when the people of Texas need it most.
As Texans continue days without power or heat, the shale driller Comstock Resources Inc., a listed company of which Jones is the majority shareholder, sold gas at ‘super-premium prices’, according to NPR. It was ‘like hitting the jackpot’, Comandock’s president and chief financial officer Roland Burns said in a call on Wednesday.
It’s a matter for Jones, as defensible to him as – I’m hypothetical here, of course – another billionaire who claims it’s smart of me not to pay taxes. Jones does not need the money, but need has nothing to do with it. Making more money for himself is one way he keeps score. (Winning the Super Bowls is another, though he hasn’t done so in almost three decades.)
OK then. Let’s keep score.
The citizens of Arlington contributed $ 325 million to the financing of Jones’ playhouse, AT&T Stadium. Jones pays the city a meager $ 2.5 million a year to operate the stadium. This deal was supposed to be an economic generator for Arlington, and maybe it was. But an implicit reason for agreements like this is that a team does not just belong to the franchise owner. A team belongs to the citizenry that it remains. Right.
Now you see how Jones treats Texans in their time of need. We can call it a betrayal, but it’s really just an extension of the relationship between Jones and Texans. It is impossible to arrange a fair deal if one party is in it for love and the other one for money. When Jones wanted a stadium deal years ago, he used Roger Staubach in the public effort, a clever way to make the voice look like an act of loyalty without explicitly mentioning it.
Jones knew what he was doing then, and he certainly knows what he is doing now. If all the clothes suddenly disappeared from the state, Jones would sell Cowboys sweatshirts for $ 1,000 each.
Remember this story the next time your favorite team asks for a new stadium, or if your favorite player is accused of being greedy because he wants to test free agency, or even the next time you shell out cash for merchandise.
The Dallas Cowboys are the American team in the NFL Movies, and Jones managed to make money from it without using the real monk. He bought the Cowboys not only because he wanted an NFL team, but also because he wanted this NFL team, the one with probably the largest fan base in American sports. He knew the Cowboys meant something to people. He likes it. He is a master at making money from it.
Jones won three Super Bowls early in his Cowboys season and has since desperately tried to win a fourth. In this way, his desires seem to match those of his fan base, yet: he does it for him, not them. He surpassed most of the stadium’s expenses, but it was not because he wanted to boost the Arlington economy. He wanted the world’s most beautiful stadium. In the 11 years since its opening, the Cowboys’ franchise value has gone from $ 1.6 billion to $ 5.7 billion, according to Forbes.
That would be enough for most of us. Yet Comstock Resources sells gas at prices ranging from $ 15 per thousand cubic feet to $ 179 per thousand cubic feet, a surcharge of between 600% and 7500% above pre-crisis levels. The idea that people urgently need the gas and can not afford it probably did not even occur to him. The church of market worship has a narrow definition of sin.
Jones should be embarrassed, but billionaires are not ashamed of what they see as good business deals. They get embarrassed when many people shout at them, or when the public disgrace is so great that the good business deal goes bad. Cowboys fans can show Jones how angry they are by reducing their financial support to the team. Logic says they must. History says they will not do it. Jones bets he can make money by praising the people he pretends to represent. In that sense, he is a fitting owner of America’s Team.