Cowboys In London: Super Bowl-Hosting Leverage
By Mike Fisher | @fishsports
LONDON (105.3 THE FAN) -- Cowboys officials are trying to make this UK visit memorable outside of the actual football game, an effort capped by Friday's team-wide dinner and tour of the Tower of London. And if the Cowboys ever do this again?
It'll be as "visitors" again, because owner Jerry Jones has no intention of making another trip possible by sacrificing a home game at AT&T Stadium -- even though, he says, doing so might be required for the leverage to bring a Super Bowl back to North Texas.
"As you're well aware, we don't play many games relative to other sports and so that's not something we're interested in doing, foregoing a home game," Jones says.
Jones' reasoning: As much as London has "cachet" (his word) and begins to tap a European revenue stream ("cash," which is my word), home games in Arlington offer much the same. The Cowboys have 199 consecutive home sellouts, a league record. That's not just bragging rights; the absence of one of eight home games means fewer visitors to DFW, less revenue for the Cowboys and a break in commitment to Cowboys season-ticket holders.
So does that mean AT&T stadium -- an NFL "crown jewel" in its own right -- will be robbed of another Super Bowl? Hardly. The Jones family has leverage, and authority, and influence, and power, in NFL circles. Jerry has been creative in helping his fellow owners gain riches beyond even their imaginations; he will soon work with them in being creative in order to bend the unwritten rule about the London/Super Bowl trade-off.
Said Jones: "Our away games and our ability to play away has always been a consideration and something we would do. Again, the trip, the experience everything that is involved with it is a big plus."
Translation: the NFL having the Cowboys participate in London as a "visitor" (in both senses of the word) is Jerry's offering. And all he will ask for as payback is a Super Bowl in Arlington.
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