Jerry Jones ‘open’ to Mark Cuban as Cowboys co-owner, but not looking for new investors

Some of Jerry Jones’ earliest memories are of his first job, working at Pat’s Super Market in North Little Rock, Ark., greeting customers at the store owned by his mother and father. He operates the Dallas Cowboys the same way, as a family business — with his son Stephen as chief operating officer, his daughter Charlotte as chief brand officer, and his son Jerry Jr. as chief sales and marketing officer. All three are co-owners.

“The opportunity to work on a daily basis with three people who share your name, your genetics and your passion is a blessing,” Jones said during his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement speech in 2017. “I get credit for their ideas, their hard work. They’re my backbone. They’re my inspiration.”

So when The Dallas Morning News recently asked Jones about potentially taking on a minority owner in Mark Cuban, the former Dallas Mavericks majority owner, Jones politely said that although the club isn’t interested in taking on additional investors, it wouldn’t rule it out in the future.

“That’s exactly why, if you’re me, you would be open to that is because of the man,” Jones told the outlet. “I have all the respect in the world for him, and I know what he did for the Mavericks and what he’s done for basketball. … You want to associate with the highest quality of (people) who loves the game and then also at the same time wants to do something about it. Mark leads the way in that.”

The NFL recently approved private equity minority ownership stakes in its 32 franchises, and several teams have begun partnerships with private equity groups. The Cowboys have not. And as long as Jones, 83, is alive, it’s unlikely they will.

It’s interesting to think of Jones working with Cuban, considering Jones is one of the most powerful people in the NFL and Cuban has been critical of the league. In 2014, Cuban criticized the NFL for expanding its schedule to have games on more days of the week.

“I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion,” he said at the time. “I’m just telling you: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy.”

In April, Jones was asked about “hogs getting slaughtered” with the NFL’s continued expansion of games.

“When the ducks quack, feed them,” Jones responded. “And we have that demand for our games because of the hard work and great players that we have. We have great demand. We should address it, respond to it and feed it.”

On Friday, 105.3 The Fan in Dallas asked Stephen Jones about potentially selling a minority ownership stake in the Cowboys.

“We wouldn’t rule it out, but we’d also be very particular about who we would bring in as a partner in terms of that,” he said. “But yes, it was designed when we passed that rule that you could have private equity involved in the NFL, and you could have minority partners. It made sense for a lot of different reasons. And every owner who chooses to go that path can speak for themselves in terms of why they’re doing it, but I think it’s a great tool. I think it makes the league stronger, personally.

“Certainly, it’s not something that we would ever totally rule out, but I wouldn’t say anything is on the front burner, either.”