JERRY JONES CONTINUES TO BE A BIG WINNER "OFF THE FIELD"

 

Jerry Jones

Jerral Wayne Jones, known as "Jerry Jones," the man who personally inspects every jock strap in the Dallas Cowboys locker room and every pizza baked at Papa John's, is, to put it mildly, a deal maker.

Jerry was raised in North Little Rock, Arkansas, but that's not the whole story.

He's actually from the Rose City neighborhood of North Little Rock, where he and his family ran a small grocery.

To illustrate the economic status of the Rose City neighborhood, when Nena and I were looking to buy our first house in North Little Rock in the early 70's, she told our realtor, Pearl Dean Hooper, to look anywhere, but "Rose City."

Yet, the Rose City boy was a wheeler-dealer from the get-go.

Fresh from graduating from the University of Arkansas, where he played football under Frank Broyles, along with Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and a dozen other notables, Jerry convinced the Teamsters Union to loan him a million bucks to start up Shakey's Pizza, a company that, for the most part, was a failure.

So, Jerry turned his attention to the oil and gas business, particularly natural gas.

With a friend, Sheffield Nelson, being one of the higher-ups at ArkLa Gas, Jerry was able to purchase the natural gas rights for a large plot of land for $15M.

After Jerry discovered natural gas on that land, he turned around and sold the rights back to ArkLa for $175M, but that money was burning a hole in Jerry's pocket and so he used $140M of it to purchase the Dallas Cowboys.

Still making and signing deals, Jerry traded 52.5 producing oil wells in 2018 for 88.57M shares in Comstack, an investment of $398M.  Those shares are currently worth $1.68B.

Oh, if you're the least bit curious about Jerry's political leanings, he sent much-maligned Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a Super Bowl ring.

So, as you trained lawyers might say, in summation, Mr. Deal Maker, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, is doing OK, at least "off the field."