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Jerry Jones is doing what he always did: try to make money. He’s pretty darn good at it. He’s a billionaire for many reasons: business acumen, luck, fearlessness, and a 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 to go days without power or heat, shale driller Comstock Resources Inc., a publicly traded company in which Jones is the majority shareholder, has, according to NPR, sold gas at “super premium prices. “. It was “like hitting the jackpot,” Roland Burns, president and chief financial officer of Comstock, said in an earnings call on Wednesday.
It’s a deal for Jones, as defensible to him as – I’m hypothetical here, of course – another billionaire claiming that not paying taxes “makes me smart.” Jones doesn’t need the money, but the need has nothing to do with it. Earning more money for himself is one way to keep score. (Winning the Super Bowls is the other, although he hasn’t done so for almost three decades.)
So ok. Let’s keep the score.
The citizens of Arlington have contributed $ 325 million to fund the Jones Theater, AT&T Stadium. Jones pays the city $ 2.5 million a year to operate the stadium. This deal is supposed to be an economic generator for Arlington, and maybe it has been. But an implicit reason for such deals is that a team doesn’t just belong to the franchise owner. A team belongs to the citizens who encourage it. Law.
Now you see how Jones treats Texans in times of need. We might call it betrayal, but it’s really just an extension of the relationship between Jones and the Texans. It is impossible to organize a fair transaction when one party is in it for love and the other for money. Years ago, when Jones wanted a stadium deal, he enlisted Roger Staubach in the public effort, a clever way to pass the vote as an act of fan loyalty without explicitly calling it that.
Jones knew what he was doing then, and he sure knows what he is 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 requests a new stadium or your favorite player is accused of being greedy because they want to test out a free agency, or even the next time you shell out some cash. for goods.
The Dallas Cowboys are the American team in the NFL Films story, and Jones was able to monetize that image without using the actual nickname. He bought the Cowboys not just because he wanted an NFL team, but because he wanted this The NFL team, the one with arguably the largest fan base in American sport. He knew the Cowboys meant something to people. He loves it. He is a master in the art of making money.
Jones won three Super Bowls early in his tenure with the Cowboys and has desperately tried to win a fourth since. That way, his desires seem to be aligned with those of his fan base, but still: He’s doing this for himself, not for them. He covered most of the stadium expenses, but it wasn’t because he wanted to boost Arlington’s economy. He wanted the fanciest stadium in the world. In the 11 years since it opened, the value of the Cowboys franchise has grown from $ 1.6 billion to $ 5.7 billion, according to Forbes.
That would be enough for most of us. Still, Comstock Resources sells gas at prices ranging from $ 15 per thousand cubic feet to $ 179 per thousand cubic feet, an increase of between 600% and 7,500% from pre-crisis levels. The idea that people might desperately need the gas and can’t afford it probably didn’t even occur to him. The market worship church has a narrow definition of sin.
Jones should be embarrassed, but billionaires aren’t shy about what they see as good business. They are embarrassed when many people call them, or when the shame of the public is so great that a good deal turns into a bad deal. Cowboys fans can show Jones how angry they are by reducing their financial support for the team. Logic says they should. History says they won’t. Jones is betting he can make money by jacking up the prices of the people he claims to represent. In that sense, he is a fitting owner of the American team.
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