Bulls-of-the-Week
The afterglow from the Olympic Games is as strong as it’s been in years. That is true both globally, where more than 10,714 athletes from 206 countries put on one of the most engaging Summer Games ever at Paris 2024, and domestically, where Canada’s haul of 27 medals (nine gold, seven silver and 11 bronze) was second all-time behind only Los Angeles 1984. Those games carry an asterisk because of the Soviet-led boycott that kept many of eastern Europe’s athletes at home in retaliation for the U.S.-led boycott of Moscow 1980. Even without Russians participating, chalk up Paris 2024 as the best-ever Olympics, at least in my books, and as Canada’s best showing all-time.
Bears-of-the-Week
The Dallas Cowboys of the NFL are a veritable sport business juggernaut. They have been at or near the top of the charts of franchise valuation since the turn of the century almost 25 years ago. Part of that is simply because they’re the richest team in the richest league in the world. Like essentially every franchise in the NFL, they make an annual profit before even playing a single game. That’s thanks to the revenue-sharing business model that sees the Cowboys and the 31 other members of the Shield split more than $13 billion in national media rights. You know you’re in a good place business-wise when your player costs of approximately $255 million are more than covered by your TV and streaming revenues of $400 million. That leaves plenty of gravy from ticket sales, concessions, merchandising and local sponsorships.
According to Sportico, the Cowboys are valued at $10 billion US and are the first franchise in the world to cross that threshold, one year after becoming the first to exceed annual club revenues of $1 billion and nine years after becoming the richest team in the world in 2015. The forthcoming Forbes magazine listing is bound to produce similar financial metrics for the Cowboys, making them far and away the highest-valued franchise in the NFL, in North America, and in the world.
Yet there’s a bearish side to the self-titled America’s Team. And that’s performance on the field, where it matters most to fans. On the one hand, they have five Super Bowl titles to their credit, putting them in the top echelon of the all-time list tied for third with the San Francisco 49ers and behind only the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers (six each). They are the only team in NFL history to record 20 consecutive winning seasons (1966-1985).
On the other hand, it’s been 29 years since the Cowboys last won a Super Bowl in 1995. In fact, they’ve only made the playoffs 13 times since.
To that end, the Cowboys are a tale of two Jerry Jones, who has owned The Big D since buying the team from Bum Bright for $140 million in 1989. Business-wise, he’s been a maverick, and it has paid off for him. Yet football-wise, operating as his own general manager, Jones is as accountable for the 32 times his Cowboys have not won the Vince Lombardi Trophy as he is the three times they have under his ownership (1992, 1993 and 1995).
Imagine what the NFL in Dallas would be worth with a full-fledged general manager in place for all these years. Consider what the last quarter-century might have looked like for Cowboys fans if Jones had hired and empowered a savvy operator to make the football decisions.
Tom Mayenknecht is the host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Vancouver-based sport business commentator and principal in Emblematica Brand Builders provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Mayenknecht at: twitter.com/TheSportMarket.
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