Dallas Cowboys

• 1. Introduction

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  The Dallas Cowboys have never been modest about what they are. In 2015, they became the first sports franchise anywhere in the world to be valued at $4 billion, and by late 2025, that figure had climbed to roughly $13 billion. Those numbers belong to a team that began in 1960 without a single win in its first season, a team whose very existence was secured by a man purchasing a fight song for $2,500 and using it as leverage against a rival owner. How did a franchise born from that kind of backroom negotiation become the most valuable sports organization on the planet? And what explains the strange duality at the heart of this organization: five Super Bowl championships on one hand, and a playoff drought stretching across decades on the other? Those are the questions this story sets out to answer.

• 2. A Song for a Franchise

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  Clint Murchison Jr. wanted a football team in Dallas, but one man stood in his way: George Preston Marshall, owner of the Washington Redskins, who held what amounted to a territorial monopoly over professional football in the American South. At the time, NFL expansion required unanimous approval from all team owners, meaning Marshall's single vote could block Murchison indefinitely.

  The breakthrough came from an unexpected source. Barnee Breeskin had written the music to the Redskins' fight song, "Hail to the Redskins", while Marshall's wife had written the lyrics. After a falling out with Marshall, Breeskin approached Murchison's attorney before the 1959 expansion vote and offered to sell him the rights to the song. Murchison paid $2,500 for it.

  At the meeting where franchises were to be awarded, Murchison informed Marshall that he now owned "Hail to the Redskins" and had barred Marshall from playing it. Marshall responded with an expletive-laced tirade. But in the end, he traded his vote in exchange for the song rights, and Dallas was awarded an expansion franchise. A rivalry had also been born.

  With the franchise secured, Murchison assembled a leadership team that would define the Cowboys for three decades. He hired Tex Schramm from CBS Sports as team president and general manager, brought in Gil Brandt from the San Francisco 49ers as head of player personnel, and named New York Giants defensive coordinator Tom Landry as head coach. That triumvirate would run the Cowboys' football operations together for thirty years.

• 3. The Landry Years

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  Tom Landry's Cowboys failed to win a single game in their inaugural 1960 season. The slow climb to respectability took five years; the team did not reach .500 until 1965. But what followed was unlike anything the NFL had seen before or since: from 1966 to 1985, Dallas recorded twenty consecutive winning seasons, missing the playoffs only in 1974 and 1984.

  The franchise's first taste of a championship game came in 1967, when the Cowboys lost to the Green Bay Packers in what became known as the Ice Bowl, a game played in conditions so extreme the name has outlasted the final score. They lost the 1966 NFL Championship Game to Green Bay as well. Dallas reached its first Super Bowl after the 1970 season, led by quarterback Craig Morton. They defeated Detroit 5-0 in what remains the lowest-scoring playoff game in NFL history, then beat San Francisco 17-10 in the first-ever NFC Championship Game. In Super Bowl V, they lost 16-13 to the Baltimore Colts on a field goal by Jim O'Brien with five seconds remaining. The loss still produced one remarkable footnote: linebacker Chuck Howley was named Super Bowl MVP, the only time in Super Bowl history the award went to a player from the losing team.

  The first championship arrived after the 1971 season. Landry named Roger Staubach as the permanent starting quarterback at midseason, and the Cowboys won their last seven regular season games. In Super Bowl VI, Staubach won the MVP award and Dallas crushed Miami 24-3, with the Cowboys posting a then-Super Bowl-record 252 rushing yards. The win buried a running joke that had tagged Dallas as "Next Year's Champions."

  The decade of the 1970s was the Cowboys' most dominant stretch. From 1970 through 1979 they won 105 regular season games, more than any other NFL franchise. They appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two. The second championship came after the 1977 season, when Dallas beat Denver 27-10 in Super Bowl XII. Defensive linemen Randy White and Harvey Martin were named co-MVPs, the first and only time multiple players have shared that honor.

  Following that loss to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XIII, NFL Films editor Bob Ryan dubbed the Cowboys "America's Team," a nickname that has drawn derision from non-Cowboys fans while adhering stubbornly to the franchise through both prosperity and collapse.

  The 1981 NFC Championship Game introduced a lasting wound. Dallas held a 27-21 lead late in the fourth quarter against San Francisco when 49ers quarterback Joe Montana drove his team 89 yards for a touchdown, connecting with Dwight Clark in a play that became simply "The Catch." The Cowboys fell 28-27, and what felt like the end of an era proved to be exactly that.

  Owner H.R. "Bum" Bright purchased the team from Murchison before the 1984 season. Hard seasons followed: 7-9 in 1986, 7-8 in 1987, and a collapse to 3-13 in 1988. During a home loss to Atlanta in 1987, Bright told reporters he was "horrified" by Landry's play calling. The savings and loan crisis then swallowed Bright's financial reserves, forcing him to sell the team to Jerry Jones on the 25th of February, 1989, for $150 million.

• 4. The Trade and the Dynasty

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  Jerry Jones arrived and immediately fired Tom Landry, the only head coach the Cowboys had ever known. He replaced him with Jimmy Johnson, who had been his teammate at the University of Arkansas. The move reunited Johnson with wide receiver Michael Irvin, who had played for Johnson at the University of Miami.

  With the first overall pick in the 1989 draft, the Cowboys selected UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman. Later that year, they traded running back Herschel Walker to Minnesota for five veteran players and eight draft choices. The Cowboys finished 1989 with a 1-15 record, the worst in the franchise's then-thirty-year history. "The Trade," as it became known, looked disastrous in the moment. The draft picks it generated did not.

  Johnson used those picks and the draft slots that followed to build the core of a dynasty. Emmitt Smith arrived in 1990, defensive tackle Russell Maryland and offensive tackle Erik Williams in 1991, safety Darren Woodson in 1992. They joined holdovers like Irvin and new additions including tight end Jay Novacek and defensive end Charles Haley. By 1992 Dallas set a team record with a 13-3 regular season mark.

  On the 17th of January, 1993, Dallas traveled to Candlestick Park and beat San Francisco 30-20 to reach their first Super Bowl since 1978. In Super Bowl XXVII they overwhelmed the Buffalo Bills 52-17, forcing a record nine turnovers. Johnson became the first coach in history to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl.

  The back-to-back title came the following year. Despite starting the 1993 season 0-2, Dallas finished 12-4 as the NFC's top seed and sent a then-NFL-record eleven players to the Pro Bowl. They beat the Bills again in Super Bowl XXVIII, 30-13, becoming the first team to win a Super Bowl after starting 0-2.

  Weeks later, friction between Johnson and Jones culminated in Johnson's resignation. Jones hired former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer as his replacement. The Cowboys won their fifth championship in Super Bowl XXX, defeating Pittsburgh 27-17 at Sun Devil Stadium. Emmitt Smith set an NFL record with 25 rushing touchdowns that season. Switzer joined Johnson as the only coaches to win both a college national championship and a Super Bowl.

  The glory that followed was short-lived. Free agency, injuries, and off-field problems eroded the roster through the late 1990s. Switzer resigned after the 1997 season, Irvin suffered a career-ending cervical spine injury in 1999, and Aikman sustained a concussion in the 2000 season opener so serious it ended his career. Emmitt Smith broke Walter Payton's all-time NFL rushing record on the 28th of October, 2002, in a home game against Seattle, then was released after the season ended.

• 5. Romo, Prescott, and the Playoff Drought

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  Tony Romo emerged as the Cowboys' starting quarterback in week 7 of the 2006 season after Drew Bledsoe was pulled during a loss to the Giants. Romo went 5-1 in his first six starts. He would remain the Cowboys' starter for the better part of a decade, accumulating one of the franchise's most productive careers at the position. His tenure was defined in equal measure by regular-season excellence and postseason collapse.

  The 2007 season produced the Cowboys' first number-one NFC seed in twelve years. They won twelve of their first thirteen games, with their only loss in that stretch coming against the undefeated New England Patriots. A divisional round loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants ended their run 21-17.

  A practice facility collapse on the 2nd of May, 2009, injured twelve Cowboys players and coaches. Special teams coach Joe DeCamillis suffered fractured cervical vertebrae. Scouting assistant Rich Behm, who was thirty-three years old, was permanently paralyzed from the waist down after his spine was severed.

  In 2016, a preseason injury to Romo opened the door for rookie quarterback Dak Prescott. Prescott led the Cowboys on an eleven-game winning streak. After much speculation about a quarterback controversy, Romo announced publicly that Prescott had earned the starting job. Dallas finished 13-3, tying the franchise's best record over a sixteen-game season. Prescott tied an NFL rookie record held by Russell Wilson and Dan Marino by throwing multiple touchdowns in five consecutive games. Rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott broke Tony Dorsett's single-season rushing record for a Cowboys rookie. The Packers eliminated them in the divisional round on a last-second field goal.

  Romo retired on the 4th of April, 2017, after fourteen seasons. The Cowboys qualified for the postseason in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2006-2007 when they made the playoffs in both 2021 and 2022, each year finishing 12-5. Both years ended in divisional round losses to San Francisco, the team's seventh consecutive divisional round defeat.

  The 2023 season produced a third consecutive 12-5 finish, the first time in NFL history a team won at least twelve games in three straight years without reaching a Conference Championship Game. Dak Prescott led the league with 36 passing touchdowns and 410 completions. CeeDee Lamb led the league with 135 receptions, setting single-season franchise records for both receptions and receiving yards. The Cowboys were eliminated in the wild card round by seventh-seeded Green Bay 48-32, at one point trailing 48-16 in the fourth quarter.

• 6. The Brand and the Business

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  The Dallas Cowboys' identity as a commercial juggernaut has roots in decisions made long before the franchise became the world's most valuable sports team. General manager Tex Schramm started the tradition of the Cowboys wearing white jerseys at home in 1964, contrary to the informal convention that home teams wore colored uniforms. Schramm wanted fans in Dallas to see the variety of opposing teams' colors, and the summer heat at Texas Stadium made white a practical choice. The tradition has endured ever since, interrupted only in specific seasons and special occasions.

  The Cowboys' consecutive sellout streak began in 2002. Their 190 consecutive sold-out regular and postseason games, both home and away, represents an NFL record. AT&T Stadium in Arlington opened in 2009 and took its current name before the 2013 season when the Cowboys sold the naming rights to the telecommunications company.

  In 2014 Dallas generated $620 million in revenue, a record for any American sports team at that time. By 2015 Forbes valued the franchise at $4 billion, making it the first sports team anywhere in the world to reach that threshold. The Cowboys have appeared on Forbes' list of the most valued NFL franchise for twelve consecutive years as of 2018. By late 2025, the valuation had reached approximately $13 billion.

  Owner Jerry Jones has extended the Cowboys' blue star logo beyond football. Jones' now-defunct AFL team, the Dallas Desperados, used a similar star design. The star also appears on an imaging facility and storage facility affiliated with the ownership.

  In 1966, the Cowboys' seventh season, Schramm agreed to host a second NFL Thanksgiving game, a tradition that had been anchored by the Detroit Lions since the Lions moved to Detroit in 1934. Over eighty thousand fans and millions watching on CBS saw Dallas beat Cleveland 26-14 at the Cotton Bowl. After a brief interlude in the mid-1970s when the St. Louis Cardinals took over hosting duties, the Cowboys resumed and then permanently locked in the Thanksgiving hosting role. After Commissioner Pete Rozelle asked them to resume, the Cowboys negotiated a formal agreement guaranteeing their spot on the holiday schedule in perpetuity.

• 7. America's Uniform

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  The Dallas Cowboys' blue star helmet logo, representing Texas as "The Lone Star State", is among the most widely recognized team symbols in professional sports. The star started as a solid shape and in 1964 received a white line and blue border that remain unchanged today.

  The Cowboys' helmets carry an unusual detail: each player's name is embossed on a blue strip of Dymo tape placed on the white portion of the stripe at the back of the helmet. The helmet color itself is described as Metallic Silver Blue (PMS 8240 C), a distinctive shade that has defined the franchise's look across decades.

  The blue jersey has accumulated a mythology all its own. The origins of the so-called "blue jersey curse" trace to the 1968 divisional playoff loss to the Cleveland Browns, which turned out to be quarterback Don Meredith's final game with the team. The Cowboys lost Super Bowl V wearing blue. In 1976, the St. Louis Cardinals elected to wear white at home, forcing Dallas into blue, and won 21-17 to hand the then-undefeated Cowboys their first loss in six games. The cumulative regular season record in blue uniforms stands, as of the most recent count, at 101-104-3, with a 2-6 record in playoff games wearing blue.

  Schramm himself did not believe in the curse. The Cowboys' blue alternates in recent decades have generally produced winning results. The 1972 season stands as the only full regular season in which Dallas never wore a blue jersey in competition. The 2019 season sits at the opposite extreme: Dallas wore blue eight times, the most in any single season on record.

  In 1976, the Cowboys wore a red-white-blue stripe on their helmets for one season to mark the United States bicentennial. That configuration was revived in 2021 and is now worn for one regular season game each year to honor Medal of Honor recipients.