Jerry Jones does what he’s always done: he’s trying to make money. He’s damn good at this. He is a billionaire for many reasons: business acumen, luck, fearlessness and a desire to do things like raise the price of natural gas at a time when Texas residents need it most.
While Texans continue to go days without electricity or heat, shale drilling Comstock Resources Inc., a publicly traded company whose majority shareholder Jones is, according to NPR, sells gas at “super-premium prices.” It was “like getting the jackpot,” said Roland Burns, Comstock’s president and chief financial officer, in a winning call on Wednesday.
This is a business for Jones, as defensive for him as – I’m hypothetical here, of course – another billionaire who claims that non-payment of taxes “makes me smart.” Jones doesn’t need money, but need has nothing to do with it. Making more money for himself is a way to keep score. (Winning the Super Bowls is the other way around, though he hasn’t done that in almost three decades.)
Well then. Let’s keep the score.
The citizens of Arlington contributed $ 325 million to finance Jones’ playhouse, AT&T Stadium. Jones pays the city $ 2.5 million a year to operate the stadium. This agreement should be an economic generator for Arlington and maybe it was. But an implicit reason for such agreements is that a team does not belong only to the owner of the franchise. A team belongs to the citizens who cheer it up. Right.
Now see how Jones treats Texans in their times of need. We can call this a betrayal, but it’s really just an extension of the relationship between Jones and Texans. It is impossible to arrange a fair transaction when one party is in love and the other is in money. Years ago, when Jones wanted a deal on the stadium, he enlisted Roger Staubach in the public effort, a clever way to make the vote look like an act of fan loyalty without explicitly calling it that.
Jones knew what he was doing then, and he certainly knew what he was doing now. If all the clothes suddenly disappeared from the state, Jones would start selling Cowboys sweatshirts for $ 1,000 each.
Remember this story the next time your favorite team asks for a new stadium or your favorite player is accused of being greedy because he wants to test the agency for free or even the next time you sell money for merchandise.
The Dallas Cowboys are America’s team in the NFL Films story, and Jones has completely managed to monetize that image without using the moniker itself. He bought the Cowboys not only because he wanted an NFL team, but because he wanted to this The NFL team, probably the largest fan base in American sports. He knew Cowboys meant something to people. Love this. He is a master at making money from it.
Jones won three Super Bowls at the start of his Cowboys term and desperately tried to win a fourth since then. In this way, his wishes seem aligned with those of his fan base, but still: He does this for him, not for them. He incurred most of the stadium’s expenses, but not because he wanted to stimulate the Arlington economy. He wanted the most amateur stadium in the world. In the 11 years since it opened, the value of the Cowboys franchise has gone from $ 1.6 billion to $ 5.7 billion, according to Forbes.
That would be enough for most of us. However, Comstock Resources sells gas at prices between $ 15 per thousand cubic feet and $ 179 per thousand cubic meters, an increase of between 600% and 7,500% above pre-crisis levels. The idea that people might be in desperate need of gas and can’t afford it, didn’t even cross their minds. The church of market worship has a narrow definition of sin.
Jones should be embarrassed, but billionaires are not embarrassed by what they think is good business. It is embarrassing when many people call them or when the shame of the public is so great that good business turns into ugly. Cowboy fans can show Jones how upset they are by reducing the team’s financial support. Logic says it should. History says they won’t. Jones bets he can make money by lowering the prices of even the people he claims to represent. In this sense, he is the right owner of the American team.