Dallas Mayor Johnson wants a 2nd NFL team. But Jerry Jones, Cowboys have the say-so
This part of Texas is nearly big enough for a second pro football team.
But either Fort Worth or Dallas would probably have to beat out Frisco for it.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson rekindled a flame in his city last week that has been cold 50 years. On Twitter, he told the NFL that south Dallas deserves a team along with the Dallas Cowboys.
Then he doubled down against Frisco, claiming that Dallas won’t “be allowing” teams outside the city to “use our name.”
“So if the NFL wants the Frisco Chargers or the Frisco Jaguars to be their next expansion team, that’s their call,” he wrote.
First of all, let’s remember who really makes the call on whether any other football team ever lands here.
That would be Jerry Jones, or whoever is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, their Frisco headquarters and the regional market rights.
It is highly unlikely that Jones would welcome an AFC team until AT&T Stadium in Arlington sells every seat, every suite and every hot dog for every game.
The stadium is in the district of Arlington Mayor Pro Tem Helen Moise.
“We’ve shown we’re ready for a challenge,” she said.
“I don’t know who they could even bring in. But we’ve got the Dallas Cowboys.”
Johnson, 46, hadn’t even been born when the Cowboys played their last game in the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park. It was in 1971, on “Monday Night Football.”
When Johnson was still in his 20s, Arlington OKed spending tax money to help build AT&T Stadium. That was only after Dallas County commissioners and County Judge Margaret Keliher failed to move the ball to keep the team in that county.
This idea is nothing new. Every few years, Dallas developers stir up talk about a new football or baseball team or stadium downtown or in south Dallas.
In 2011, north Dallas developer Craig Schenkel spent money on Interstate 30 billboards reading “Bring Baseball to Dallas!”
Former Dallas mayors Robert Folsom and Ron Kirk built arenas for basketball and hockey.
Meanwhile, Fort Worth built one of the world’s largest grandstands at Texas Motor Speedway and one of the nation’s newest stadiums, Dickies Arena.
This is the month for major league sports in Fort Worth: the Professional Bull Riders World Finals May 13-22, the NASCAR All-Star Race May 22 and the Charles Schwab Challenge pro golf tournament May 23-29 at Colonial Country Club.
See, you might think Fort Worth doesn’t have big-time sports.
We have six: pro football and baseball in Arlington, Big 12 college football at TCU, car racing, pro golf and rodeo.
(Seven, if you count piano playing. The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is June 2-18.)
Mayor Mattie Parker couldn’t resist the chance to tease her Dallas counterpart.
“ ‘Dallas’ has a football team?” she wrote by text
An occasional guest on sports talk KTCK/96.7 FM, she wrote: “I usually leave my sports hot takes for my friends on ‘The Ticket,’ but any chance I get to brag on Fort Worth, I will take it.”
She listed all the sports events in Fort Worth this month alone and said the city “knows how to do professional sports.”
Look, Johnson can have his own expansion team if he wants.
(Actually, the more local teams we have, the better for the regional economy, as long as the current owners go along.)
“We are proud to be Cowboys fans in Fort Worth,” Parker said, “but welcome the conversation around the future potential for another NFL franchise.”
This won’t play anywhere but Twitter.
This story was originally published May 6, 2022 at 4:01 PM.
