Cowboys valuation a sign Jerry Jones needs to open his pocketbook

The Cowboys are raking in money, so why is owner Jerry Jones being so cheap?

Sportico revealed the list of the most valuable NFL franchises and unsurprisingly, the Dallas Cowboys are first at $9.2 billion. Per ESPN, the Cowboys are also the most valuable sports franchise globally and one of two teams (FC Barcelona the other) to make over $1 billion in revenue in 2022.

For Cowboys fans, the team’s financial success might not be such a good thing. If Jones can make a record profit by not going all-in on a Super Bowl, what incentive does he have to spend big to make players, including Zack Martin and Tony Pollard, happy? He already told reporters in February that he’s “hesitant to bet it all for a year.”

Put another way, if the Cowboys aren’t broke, Jones has no reason to fix them.

As NFL Players Association president J.C. Tretter wrote in 2021, there’s a big difference between a team’s cap spending and its available cash spending. 

“Teams can spend more than the cap, in cash, during a given season,” he wrote before adding, “It is important to understand that cash spending can exceed salary cap and in the past decade, teams who spent above the cap have also tended to be the most competitive.” 

Over The Cap poured over the details of the league’s 32 teams and found the Cowboys are both under budget and have cap space available. They rank third in available cap space at $19.7 million.

When speaking about All-Pro guard Martin’s absence, Jones said he wasn’t surprised by Martin’s holdout while noting that “[i]t’s very costly” on Martin’s end. Per NFL.com, Martin’s been fined $600,000 by the team for missing training camp. 

“Huge, significant ramifications … by anybody’s math,” Jones said. His tactic isn’t unlike the greedy studio executives waiting on writers to become unable to pay rent in order to make a deal to end the writers’ strike. 

If it’s a blinking match, Jones will win every time. He’s made more money than one person ever needs in a lifetime and can afford to play hardball with Martin more than Martin can afford to play hardball with the Cowboys  

Whether Martin is on the team or not, Jones will still make billions. But unless Jones opens up his pocketbook and spends the money gained off the backs of his players, the Cowboys will still be searching for a Super Bowl.