Who Owns the Dallas Cowboys? Jerry Jones and a $13B Club

Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys and has since February 1989, when he bought the franchise from Harvey “Bum” Bright for $140 million. He is the club’s owner, president and general manager, and his three children are co-owners with senior executive titles. Forbes valued the Cowboys at $13 billion in August 2025, making them the most valuable sports franchise in the world, and put Jones and family at $19 billion on 9 August 2026.

How much did Jerry Jones pay, and what did he sell to fund it?

The deal closed on 23 February 1989 at $140 million: $65 million for the football team and $75 million for Texas Stadium, according to the club’s own account of the sale. Bright had opened at a $200 million asking price.

Jones funded it largely by selling Arkoma Production, the oil and gas company he ran with partner Mike McCoy, for $175 million. He put in roughly $90 million of cash, close to everything he had, and borrowed the balance at 11.5% against assets he still owned, an interest bill of about $40,000 a day. The timing was as bad as it looks: Texas savings and loans were collapsing, the oil and gas industry was at a historic low, and the Cowboys were losing just under $1 million a month.

One inconsistency is worth flagging, because it appears everywhere. Forbes and several other outlets put the purchase at $150 million rather than $140 million. The Cowboys’ own account gives the $65 million plus $75 million split, so $140 million is the figure this page uses.

Jones fired Tom Landry, the only head coach in the franchise’s history, within days of the purchase and installed his college teammate Jimmy Johnson. The Cowboys went 1-15 in his first season and won three Super Bowls in the four seasons from 1992.

Who runs the Dallas Cowboys?

The Jones family, top to bottom. All four hold executive titles listed on the club’s own front office roster.

Name	Title	Relationship
Jerry Jones	Owner, president and general manager	Owner
Stephen Jones	Chief operating officer and co-owner	Eldest son
Charlotte Jones	Chief brand officer and co-owner	Daughter
Jerry Jones, Jr.	Chief sales and marketing officer and co-owner	Son

No other NFL franchise concentrates football and commercial authority so tightly in one family. Jones named himself general manager on day one and has never handed the title to anyone, so the Cowboys have run for nearly four decades without a conventional football executive at the top of the chart. Stephen Jones carries much of the day-to-day football workload.

What is Jerry Jones’s net worth?

Forbes put Jerry Jones and family at $19 billion on 9 August 2026, which placed him fifth among NFL owners behind Rob Walton, the Hunt family, Stan Kroenke and David Tepper. The full ranking is in our guide to the richest NFL owners.

The Cowboys are the largest single asset, but the fortune is broader than football. Jones holds a controlling stake in Comstock Resources, a Texas natural gas producer he moved into in 2018, along with Dallas commercial and residential real estate and the hospitality company Legends, which he co-founded with the New York Yankees. He made his first million as an oil wildcatter in the 1970s.

How much are the Cowboys worth, and why?

$13 billion, per Forbes on 28 August 2025, the 19th consecutive year the Cowboys have topped the NFL list. They became the first sports team ever valued above $10 billion in 2024, then skipped $11 billion and $12 billion to land at $13 billion a year later.

The reason is revenue, not results. Forbes recorded $1.2 billion of revenue from the 2024 season and $629 million of operating income, with revenue running nearly $500 million ahead of the next NFL club. The Cowboys have not reached a conference championship game since the 1995 season, and their valuation has risen every year regardless.

Metric	Dallas Cowboys
Forbes valuation (Aug 2025)	$13,000,000,000
Revenue (2024 season)	$1,200,000,000
Operating income	$629,000,000
Purchase price (1989)	$140,000,000
Return on purchase price	About 93x
Years ranked NFL’s most valuable	19 consecutive

AT&T Stadium is the engine. It opened in 2009, cost roughly $1.2 billion, seats 80,000 with standing room taking it past 100,000 for major events, and generates suite, sponsorship and non-NFL event income that most clubs cannot approach. It ranks among the largest NFL stadiums by capacity and well ahead of all of them by revenue per seat.

How does Jerry Jones’s ownership model differ from other NFL owners?

He sells his own sponsorships. In 1995 Jones signed independent deals with Pepsi and Nike for the Cowboys and Texas Stadium, cutting across the NFL Trust arrangement under which clubs pooled their marketing rights and split the proceeds equally. The league sued for $300 million, Jones counter-sued, and the matter was settled. The precedent reshaped how NFL clubs monetise local sponsorship.

Three other things set him apart. He is his own general manager, which no other owner is. He is the public face of the club to a degree no other owner attempts, giving weekly radio and press availability. And he built and financed AT&T Stadium largely himself, with the club carrying the majority of the construction cost rather than the public purse funding it outright.

The result is a franchise that behaves more like a media company with a football team attached than a traditional sports club. Most NFL owners made their money elsewhere and hired operators, as the ownership guides across this site show. Jones made his money elsewhere and then took the operating job himself.

Who takes over when Jerry Jones stops?

Jones turns 84 in October 2026 and has said consistently that the Cowboys will remain in the family and that he has no interest in selling. All three children are already co-owners with executive titles, and Stephen Jones is the presumed successor as controlling owner.

The complication is structural rather than personal. NFL rules require a controlling owner to hold at least 30% of the franchise personally, and on a $13 billion valuation that is a $3.9 billion position. Estate tax on an asset of that size is the single biggest reason family-held NFL clubs eventually come to market, and it is why the Paul G. Allen Estate put the Seattle Seahawks up for sale in 2026. The Jones family has had 37 years to plan for it. Whether the plan survives contact with a nine-figure tax bill is the open question of Cowboys ownership.