Grubstakers - Episode 49: Jerry Jones feat. Joel Walkoski

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

This week we cover the NFL outlaw Jerry Jones. We cover everything from his dad’s alcoholic behavior at the White Pig Inn, to how he allegedly almost got a loan from Jimmy Hoffa and how he rules the brightest star the Dallas Cowboys. All of this is enhanced by special guest Joel Walkowski. Follow him on twitter @theWALKOWSKI Follow us @Grubstakerspod Follow your heart.

Should we put our hands in and say billionaires on three? Since we're doing a sports episode, I think we should start with a sports chair. That should be our open. Come on. I'll do it, yeah. Alright, Sean, get your hands off your lap. This is the problem. That's why nerds don't play sports. Billionaires on three. One, two, three. Billionaires! Get lost, please.

Thank you. I can tell you that every job has its ups and downs, and a union can't change that fact. I mean, it is the magic elixir of our age and of all ages. What it does for prostate cancer is amazing. You get a $200 billion profit, you didn't have to pay any tax. Isn't that true? Listen, it's...

Is that true or not? Yes or no? It is. You do not pay a profit when someone... a tax when someone makes you sell assets. Maybe that would be a better way for you to become Secretary of Treasury so you didn't have to pay the tax. Oh. All right. In 5, 4, 3, 2... Show love. Hello and welcome back to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. Joe Love Joel Wachowski is joining us. Hello, 6'3", from the Detroit, Michigan. Joel Wachowski, sweet baby Jay.

Good to be here in the Grub Worms. Talking to all you Grub Worms. Just as a little treat, I wrote a special intro theme for this podcast today. It's set to the tune of Ghostbusters. Okay, yeah. There's development in your neighborhood. Who are you going to call? Grub Stakers.

Billionaires are up to no good. Who are you going to call? Grub Stakers. Yogi, Steve, Andy, and McCarthy. There's going to report on financial inequality. Gross takers. Good to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

Good to have you. Man, what's with our guests bringing their own intros now? I kind of like it. Let's work for me. What were the other intros people had? Hi, it's good to be here. Okay. Usually.

Well, I was just driving here and uh all thoughts are just clouds as we know and um i wanted to have a more interesting cloud in my brain so i came up with this song and then i was like after i was like maybe i'll say like yeah that's a shouts to ray parker another famous billionaire well thank you for being here, Joel. And we wanted Joel here because we're going to talk today about Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys. And Joel is the football expert. And so he can fill in all the gaps in our knowledge about that.

But before we get to Mr. Jerry Jones, who, of course, the Cowboys just lost yesterday. So he's very sad today. But before we get to him, we should mention... You can't tell he's sad because his face no longer expresses emotion. A lot of facelifts on that boy. So, Sean, you were going to talk about a famous divorce. Well, I was going to open the episode by congratulating Mackenzie Bezos on recently joining the Forbes Richest List.

That's right, that's right. And in fact, just this week, we found out that Mackenzie Bezos on recently joining the Forbes richest list. That's right. That's right. And in fact, just this week, we found out that Mackenzie Bezos became the richest novelist in American history. Didn't even have to write a successful book. Yes. Um, but yeah,

I mean, we'll, we'll circle back. I'm sure if, if you're listening, you probably saw the press reports. Basically, Jeff Bezos was having an affair with some woman that he was meeting

through Lin-Manuel Miranda. How dare he? Sending weird text messages about how he wants to devour her soul. I'm paraphrasing. Young love is so beautiful. It would be great if you guys did an episode on Mackenzie Bezos.

Like, oh, how did she get her money? Oh, yeah, she gave her pussy to a golem-looking creep. That's up there with Captain's Industry, you know? If I ever see Jeff Bezos, I know he probably has some security guards. I will try and behead him in the street.

Really? Absolutely. If you kill the richest man in the world... Instantly famous. That just sparks the revolution right there. I think so. That's the closest I'll ever come to being a Black Panther, so I got to do it.

Well, I do own a beret. Oh, wow. I was reading... So speaking of that, I got this biography of Lily Safra. She's a Brazilian billionaire. Future episode. Made her money in saffron rice.

She became a billionaire because she married two different Brazilian billionaires, and then they both died mysteriously. So, you know, it is like, I guess kind of the debate we have on the podcast is, is there a good billionaire? So I guess if you marry into billionaires and then murder them, that's about as good as it gets. I see why not. Yeah. But let's get back to the man of the hour, Jerry Jones.

And I just want to kind of, you know, give you the brief overview for those not familiar. Jerry Jones, of course, the dallas cowboys uh forbes puts his net worth today at about 6.8 billion dollars and the dallas cowboys have been a great investment for jerry jones he bought them in 1989 for about 150 million today they're worth uh over five billion dollars according to forbes magazine and um you know just kind of the question is like where does the money come from? How does this all happen? And it's a pretty fascinating story. I read most of the book King of the Cowboys by Jim Dent.

Most of it? How much of it did you read? Like 200 pages. Books are long. And I read Big Game by Mark Leibovich back in September. It was awesome. It had a really peeled behind the curtain into NFL ownership. And it kind of posed that Jerry Jones and Jerry Richardson were kind of the alphas in the room.

Right. So I read a little bit on his pull in the room. And I think he's a pretty interesting and almost positive figure for a billionaire. If the goal of this podcast is to find a good billionaire, Jerry Jones may well be that. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Because this is a guy who made, the Cowboys are worth what?

Five billion? Five billion. And I know his father was a little bit successful. Then he kind of came out of Arkansas and found a job as a vice president at his bank. But this is a guy who made his money by solely following his passions he loves football he put all his money that he made from football back into football and he grew his passion so that other people could connect to it i think that's kind of cool i can't fault you for that joel i think dating the daughter of a billionaire has changed you joel she's not the daughter of

the niece of a billionaire i don't know yeah it's a it's not the daughter of a... The niece of a billionaire? I don't know. Yeah, it's different. Yeah, is there a positive billionaire? Yeah, I would posit the one who let me ride his jet ski. Well, all my research for the podcast was watching First Amendment audits in Dallas for the last 24 hours.

You watched Sovereign Citizen videos? Oh, yeah, that's all I did. There's no excuse not to do research for this episode because the character of Baxter Canaan in Basketball was based on Jerry Jones. That is entirely true, yes. Yeah, you know, he would choke his enemies with a hot dog and famously not fuck Jenny McCarthy.

But so, Jerry Jones, his father was Pat jones and his father pat jones is born in arkansas near little rock in a town near little rock uh he grows up on a farm during the great depression a hard life uh his father has his father is briefly a salesman in rose city arkansas but really he gets saved by the government spending program known as world war ii his father gets a job manufacturing aircraft in los angeles during world war ii i believe 1941 he moves out there so he's manufacturing aircraft in la pat jones is from 1941 to 1945 and during this time jerry jones is born in los angeles in 1942 and then world war ii ends the family moves back to arkansas in 1945 they move to rose city and his father sets up what will become a supermarket it was basically like he opens a fruit

stand that's like a drive-in fruit stand and then they have a second floor apartment above it that the family lives in and then throughout the from 45 to 52 it expands they end up meeting at a meat market at a bakery and then in 1952 he opens pat's supermarket he makes a one-stop shopping yes there you go so but all this kind of seems to me fairly humble beginnings right yeah no i mean his dad definitely yeah i mean like and how do i want to say this relative to the rest of the country he definitely grew up in relatively modest means. But in terms of his town, I mean, his dad owned the supermarket. So in terms of his immediate area, he was upper class.

I think you can see the influence of that on how Jerry Jones has run the Cowboys. Like, his father has a successful market. He keeps adding on different aspects. Like, Jerry Jones has the Cowboys. I'm going gonna add on this wonderful stadium i'm gonna add on the largest public art collection in texas i'm gonna let tony romo fuck jessica simpson for a season why not you know absolutely it's it's about corporate synergy and having as many tendrils out there as possible diversifying your bonds i'm

gonna add on this woman that i'm having an affair with and pay her $100,000 a year. You say that like it's a bad thing. You know how little the women I have affairs with have. $100,000 versus chlamydia. Joel, you don't know. He might be giving them $100,000 and chlamydia. You know, billionaires, we just can't compete. You can't.

They give it to you all. But so just from the book, the Jim Dent book, Jerry Jones says frequently that his father taught him the value of hard work, and his dad made him work in the store from a young age. Jerry Jones is apparently selling pumpkins and Christmas trees and watermelons in the store from the age of seven to ten. Yeah, an article said that he learned how to sell at the age of nine. A nine-year-old's gabbing you at the supermarket to buy more watermelons. And I appreciate Sean doing the homework of reading this book, but that's clearly just the ghostwriter having fun.

No way, Jerry Joe is like, Yes, I sold pumpkins and watermelons. All manner of gourds and gourd like objects I mean like one thing I kind of came across is multiple people in the book say Jerry Jones is a serial liar and like there's one story we'll kind of get to I mean like

allegedly let's get that out there I cross checked it and some people he grew up with they speculate he sold squashes. What if he just liked selling circular things? He's like, I want to make this my life. Apparently, it's not the only things that he's sold. Yogi found this job or this. I'm Jimmy Johnson. And I recently became a spokesperson for extends the number one male

enhancement. Even though I'm the winner of four collegiate and professional football championships and have a sports casting career. I've been surprised at the one big question guys ask me these days. Does extends really work? Can you believe it? So here's my answer. It works for me. And since extends has work can you believe it so here's my answer it works for me and since extends has sold over a billion tablets to men i'm thinking it works for them too

most men want to perform the best they can in just about everything isn't that why we buy the biggest and best of everything so if you want that maximum performance edge every day i say go long with extent i do have you guys ever used a dick pill uh you oh of course well okay so on on youtube it says uh uh jimmy johnson extends commercial extends male enhancement and then all caps does not work and then in the description it's www.onedollardrugs.com viagra for 99 cents per pill jimmy johnson shilling for extends promise that extends does not work it's interesting that jimmy johnson is selling extends when it didn't work on his contract uh yes uh jimmy johnson was a coach of the dallas cowboys who won two super bowls and then would be famously fired by jerry jones the year after winning a super bowl uh allegedly

because jerry jones wanted to have a a super bowl uh allegedly because jerry jones wanted to have a bigger hand in uh player decisions and on field management and this kind of thing well he's selling stuff at nine he wants a bigger everything well that's the interesting thing because jerry jones should we should we he kind of followed the al davis template and i think that's the coolest thing about him is that he's still in charge of football operations like he's worth so much money. He could do anything he wants. But ultimately, he just wants to control his football team.

Right. And a lot of pro sports teams like the Detroit Lions, my beloved, for example, they're just this rich families play thing. Right. And Jerry Jones has made his business this team. And every other franchise in the league has grown from his efforts. The NFL wouldn't be such a lucrative property if not for his vision throughout and he's not that good at running a football team but hell he's amazing at developing and growing this business well i was gonna say

like maybe it's a little easy for you to say that joel is a lions fan but like i know a lot of a lot of dallas fans are just pissed off because, they haven't won a Super Bowl since 96, and then they keep doing first or second round exits in the playoffs. Oh, a second round exit. What's that like? Like everyone made a big deal when the Lions got a new owner, and the new owner was a 98-year-old woman. It's this woman, Martha Ford.

They wheel her out, like yeah i would much prefer the like slightly you know hard to predict guy who lives and breathes for this team right right right she got the team by marrying and killing the previous owner and it's amazing like because he kind of jerry jones made his money most for the most part in sports and you kind of see his template followed in dallas by mark cuban with the kind of like tech aspects to it. When Mark Cuban sued those players at the workers' compensation lawsuit. So this is like, again, we're jumping ahead. We'll circle back.

So, yes, Joel is mentioning Jerry Jones, essentially, which should be noted, when he inherited the Dallas Cowboys, they were losing like $8 million a year or so. So he monetized them very effectively. But there were definitely areas where he went too far. And one of those was 16 players were paid out $1 million between all of them by the previous owner under a workers' comp lawsuit. You know, they were injured. Jerry Jones sues them to get that $1 million back.

Wow. And this was a of course this is money belonging to the uh the previous uh owner uh jerry jones claimed that they double dipped because they were being paid well by the dallas cowboys while receiving workers comp and just one quote here uh we're not even talking about money that once belonged to jerry jones what an asshole jerry jones is he's trying to steal from his former players and that's lineman john dutton and i mean it's like something you can't really get around with football is that players put their bodies on the line they take years off their lives their bodies are often destroyed to make money for people like jerry jones and you know

he's suing fucking to get back one million dollars and i think that is unfair because they probably double dip because their brains are so cte adult they keep doing the paperwork multiple times just accidentally committing insurance fraud yeah i mean that he should sue former players for like leaving their babies in the car, drifting, wandering around the hardware store, you know. He cancels the season tickets for all the wives murdered by players. Well, they don't need them anymore. Yeah, that's true.

But we'll get to that. I would just like to say, I mentioned Jerry Jones says that his father taught him hard work, and I'm sure his father worked hard or whatever, but they were also like notorious alcoholics, both Jerry and his father. And one quote from the Jim Dent book, quote, Pat Jones could be found on a bar stool at the White Pig Inn day and night. So, you know, I mean, I guess if you're drinking day and night, maybe you're not working that hard.

Sure, sure. But it should just be noted, Little Rock, Arkansas, the White Pig Inn was a segregated bar. Oh, really? All black? Yeah. Apparently. He was a pioneer then.

Yeah. According to the book, black people could not even stop to use the phone to make a phone call. And then segregation is kind of an interesting thing in Jerry Jones's town because the federal order in 1957 desegregates Little Rock Central High School. The governor of Arkansas at the time makes a show of like sending out the National Guard. So President Eisenhower has to send in the 101st Airborne to escort nine black students to the high school. This is 1957.

Jones starts high school in 1956. Wait, isn't the Airborne like a paratrooping brigade? Yes. Yeah. They flew. The roads weren't great. Ground operations, I guess. No, you'll get over your fear of going to school like classmates when you jump out of an airplane at 30,000 feet.

What if that's how they got past the picket line of white racists? You know, they just drop them in from a plane. Everyone knows the story of Ruby Bridges. You're looking it up like this photo is much blurrier than I remember it. Yeah. You know, on my bachelor party, you know, me and my buddies, we're going to go out. We're going to take some acid and we're going to go up in a plane and desegregate. You asked the wrong person to be on this podcast.

No, Joe, you're great. The sad thing is that's the third time they've had to desegregate that school this year. Yeah, it's not the first failed mission of the 101st Airborne. It is safely resegregated now. But so that's relevant because I mentioned so it's little rock central high school gets desegregated by federal order however uh jerry uh jones goes to north little rock high school which was segregated so he goes to a segregated high school and um because of that or partly because of that he's able to play football in high school he's a running back

and you guys play football in high school he's a running back any of you guys play football in high school yes i i didn't actually i was really into my high school's video program oh av club yeah yeah and um you know what i was kind of a late bloomer and uh my high school was dominated by like uh the muslims so like it was like a very muslim thing to play on the football team so i didn't do it really yeah where'd you go uh you grew up dearborn michigan huh after um i don't know in dearborn hadn't a large muslim oh we're the most muslim city in america wow wasn't always the case in the middle of the 80s people from like lebanon yeah sure palestine yeah and they all came to dearborn no well before we get to the high school i did just want to do one uh i do i

think that's kind of unfair though like you're blaming this guy for the high school, I did just want to do one. I think that's kind of unfair, though. Like, you're blaming this guy for the high school he went to? The segregation. I'm just asking questions. I think Sean's saying if he wasn't at a segregated high school, would he be a running back? No. And it's the same with his college career.

Like, he played in college football when southern college football was segregated. So he only played against white people. It's so easy to twist the facts that day. Like, you know, Sean suspiciously didn't go to Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999. From my cold, dead hands. We're just asking questions on this podcast. I mean, actually...

Turns out that you should listen when someone sends you an email saying don't come to school today. Especially when it's your best friend. And I gotta say, everyone listening should look up the King of the Cowboys cover. Jerry Jones is wearing large aviators and a checked sharkskin suit. He looks amazing.

And Jerry Jones, just as an aside, always looks very well dressed. Very sharp. Always. He looks great. And unabashedly too good looking. All right. Well, so here's what Jerry Jones has said about segregation at the time. The thing that bothers me.

Can you do an accent, please? He is from Arkansas. Notoriously, I'm very bad at that. You got the shot. Yeah, that's why we're having to do it here to learn and grow we're asking questions just do a bill clinton impression the thing that bothers me sitting here today is why i didn't ask more questions back then why did you see that black customer why did you see the black customers at my father's store why were they always there when you went when you when you went home but i didn't see them in the schools why weren't they there on the junior high football team with me why didn't i see them on the other teams we played looking back on it now it makes me feel bad that i didn't at least ask what is going on here and i think jerry jones carried

that guilt and he tried to make it up to the poorly educated black population by later drafting Emmett Smith. But just one other little pull from the book here. We mentioned his father, like, notorious drinker, apparently a notorious womanizer. According to the book, his father would open an insurance company, we'll get to in a second, and he would hire salesmen his father would based on their ability to quickly seduce and pick up women.

That's kind of how all businesses work then. What you're really doing is selling yourself. You've seen Moneyball. That's how they did it back then. They wanted to see if you could fuck or not. That's how they knew you could get the job done. But so we mentioned that his father would be drinking all night at this White Pig Inn, and then apparently they would often... It's called the White Pig Inn. Yes, it was called the White Pig Inn.

Is it still open? I don't know. You know, maybe they didn't even set out to make a segregated bar. Yeah, come to the We're Gonna Wear White Sheets Tavern. The White Pig Inn is also a South Korean bar. The White Pig Go Home Inn. I don't get it. White Pig.

It was originally a cop bar named by the local Black Panther Party. It's kind of stuck. Yeah, they are still open, I believe. And I do like that alcoholism is like a big part of Jones' story. Are you familiar with the Jason Garrett rumor? No. Because him and the present Cowboys coach Jason Garrett are drinking buddies. And there's been a rumor going around for years that Garrett's only kept his job because he has pictures of Jerry Jones.

Really? Yeah. All right. So basically, this is the story from Jerry Jones's childhood. His father would often, you know, drink all night at the White Pig Inn and then it would close. They would go to these all night coffee shops and, you know, keep partying. So early one morning,

according to a coffee shop regular, after failing to make it home the previous night, Pat Jones looked up from a booth in the coffee shop to find his wife staring coldly into his bloodshot eyes. He also happened to be in the company of two ladies. By his mother's side was young Jerry Jones, who

stared blankly at the floor, wishing he was somewhere else. When I grow up, i'm gonna be just like my dad uh jerry jones his wife shouted i want you to take a good long look at your father jerry if you were wondering where your father was last night he was right here with these you know who's son i don't want you to grow up to be this way um that's probably another instance of the copywriter addict. What mother calls her son by his full name? But anyways. Do they use a middle name?

I don't know. Jerry Jones. Don't be like, I'm calling bullshit on that. Jim Dent. Jim Dent, if you want to come on the pod we will have you anytime uh but anyways uh fortunately jerry jones would not grow up to be like his father so the lesson worked hey uh this is a review of uh the the white pig in uh good food awful customer service uh it's about a couple uh who's interracial and they didn't get great service at this restaurant.

I wonder why. Are they still open? Yeah, they're still open. Is there like a one-star review that says, wouldn't let me use the telephone? My boyfriend and I had looked forward to dining there, but when we walked in, that changed. The waitress glared at us with open hostility. We are an interracial couple.

He is white and I am African American. Her tone and demeanor displayed how she felt about us. And she rudely asked us if we were eating in or taking it with us. It was very obvious how she felt. We selected the table. This goes on for a couple of pages, by the way. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Though the apps were slamming.

So, as we mentioned, he's a quarterback in junior high. He changes to fullback at 11th grade high school. He's the team captain for high school. But he's able to, again, this is a segregated league, he attends the University of Arkansas on a football scholarship. He goes there in 1960.

He plays guard guard and he's mostly like sixth or seventh or eighth string until 1964 season he sees some regular play he plays in the 1964 cotton bowl um and uh again as we mentioned segregated league uh all white uh opponents he's like kind of a small guard, essentially. He's like 180 pounds or something. Oh, and then he's also getting a master's degree in business at this time. And then, oh, I did want to just get one more poll quote here. And who else was on that 1964 Arkansas team?

David Duke? Jimmy Johnson, the later coach of the Dallas Cowboys, was on that 1964 Arkansas team? David Duke? Jimmy Johnson, the later coach of the Dallas Cowboys, was on that Arkansas team. Yeah, a lot of the people he hired later on were on that college team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a lot of the people he would hire to the Cowboys. And fire. Yes.

All of the people he would have horrific fallings out with were on that college team. Yeah. If the math adds up, do you think he played against Forrest Gump in college? Because Arkansas is in the SEC. So this is just like one of the weird. So Jerry Jones in college on the football team,

he's friends with the quarterback Billy Moore, and apparently they're like lifelong friends. So just one random story here. I guess they were in the dorms together jerry jones and quarterback billy moore one afternoon during jones's freshman year he heard a knock on his dormitory door moore who was two years older was breathing heavily as if he had just run up several flights of stairs he had a female companion with him. Females were off limits in the athletic dorm, a rule strictly enforced by the coach, Broilus.

Moore had little time to spare. He pushed Jones under his own bed and proceeded to have sex with the co-ed. That was one of the damnedest things that ever happened to me in my life, Jones said with a smile. Billy Moore became a friend of mine for the rest of my life. He was my hero.

So basically, he got pushed under a bed by the QB while he had sex on top of that bed. And that's how I became Kevin Spacey's gardener. But yes. So that's a, you know. Wow, what a story. What a tale. Yeah.

Formative college anecdote. But so the way that Jerry Jones gets his startup capital is, I guess, the way that a lot of, let's say, lower class, didn't grow up rich people who become billionaires do.

He gets a voucher from the government for being affected by Hurricane Katrina. He marries the daughter of a banker. At 20 years old, Jerry Jones marries a banker's daughter. He's a prominent banker in Arkansas. And he's able to borrow, in 1965, $50,000 from this guy. Though it should be mentioned, while he's in college, Jerry Jones' father and his family, they move to Springfield, Missouri, and they start Modern Security Life Insurance Company. So they make some money doing that, and Jerry Jones, while he's in college and shortly after,

is working as a salesman as well for his father's insurance company. But essentially, he marries the daughter of this banker and this $50,000 loan gives him the startup capital to make investments throughout the 60s. He graduates um 1964 um and so in the 60s he invests in uh a pizza joint franchise called uh shakey's uh apparently he had the opportunity to franchise a mcdonald's or a kfc but he passed on that instead in breston shakey's shakey's and they all folded within a few years i thought shakey's pizza Pizza is still around. Oh, I didn't know.

I see it's a California chain. The Owens, he opened. Oh, okay. His franchises didn't make it. He didn't sink the whole ship. $50,000 in 1965 is equivalent to $389,000 in 2018. Oh, Bezos startup money. Oh, yeah.

Actually, by the way, that figure, the $300,000 he got from his parents was actually just the amount his parents put in it was 50 000 over like 12 or 15 other people i did the math it's like 1.4 million dollars that was invested at that time and he also he borrowed the money to start those shakies from jimmy hoffa's union yeah that was so yeah i saw that on wikipedia it's not mentioned in the Jim Dent book. So I was saying earlier, like... This guy, he just wants to talk about pumpkins and watermelon.

Yeah, you know, we want to leave out the absence of the most famous missing persons outside the Lindbergh, baby. But, well, let's focus on the fucking gourds. I'm just saying, he could have totally made up that Jimmy Hoffa thing. The thing I read was that when he was 23, he had an opportunity by the San Diego Chargers. At the time, they were the Los Angeles Chargers. Well, they're now Los Angeles again. Point is, though, is for him to have done that, he would have had to get the startup money from Jimmy Hoffa and the mob.

And Baron Hilton, you know? So he could have lent money to someone with the same face as his future daughter. A lot of plastic surgery there. In retrospect, though, borrowing money from Jimmy Hoffa would be one of the smartest financial decisions possible. You don't have to pay that shit back. The return on that money is great. But so, yes. So he makes these investments.

He buys some rental properties. Jerry Jones takes a bank loan. He invests about $500,000 in a property that he wants to get a Walmart open there. Eventually, the Walmart would be open. But by the late 60s, there's no Walmart. So Jerry's kind of heavy in debt. He has to refinance a lot of his mortgages he's you know struggling a little bit um but he's able to get his mortgages renegotiated and so in 1970 his father sells the insurance company for healthy profit you know several million dollars and um uh jerry his father his family they all

moved back from springfield, Missouri, back to Little Rock, Arkansas. And Jerry, in 1970, is selling mobile homes for a short time. And this is kind of where he gets into the oil industry. A lot of billionaires link to mobile homes. Yes. It's almost as if they inherently prey on the poor. We talked about it on the Warren Buffett episode,

but basically Warren Buffett, among other things, owns a mobile homes company. And part of that Dodd-Frank reform bill that they passed was it essentially deregulated a lot of predatory practices for mobile home buyers and allowed them to steer mobile home buyers into predatory products without disclosing things. But yeah, you know, Warren Buffett's a nice guy. He's been nice to me.

We've got to introduce Warren Buffett to Lin-Manuel Miranda. So anyways, the oil industry for Jerry jerry jones is but the basic story is this um through one of jerry jones's relatives uh they introduced jerry jones to an oklahoma oil man and geologist named bill sparks and bill sparks is you know he's living in oklahoma and he becomes convinced that there is oil in the red Fork Sands in Oklahoma. And so he's, you know, telling people this. All he needs is the startup capital and he can go get the oil. So he finally meets Jerry Jones.

And Jerry Jones also, in addition to like kind of alcoholism, is a famous gambler. Like when he buys the Cowboys, he asks the previous owner how much room for negotiation was there. And the guy says about 300 000 and jerry jones says okay let's flip a coin for it and so you know they flip a coin for 300 000 he had a lot of integrity when he bought the cowboys actually yeah because tom landry was firmly and he's an iconic coach of the cowboys and the old owner says hey if you're buying the team i know you we want to get rid of landry yeah you want, I will fire him and take the flack for you. And Jones said no, and Jones did it himself.

And there was a mob that wanted Jerry Jones ousted from the position. I was going to say, though, well, at least the actual literal mob, this is another instance. So according to this book, the Jim Dent book, in Skip Bayless's 1990 book about Tom Landry, he writes about when Jerry Jones actually went to fire Tom Landry at the office.

Jerry Jones tells Skip Bayless that there was like a small mob formed outside the office to like intimidate him from firing Tom Landry. And so Jim Dent says that multiple people at the meeting said there was no such mob at all so it was still like a wildly yes it was he was he was extremely unpopular in dallas and i think firing tom landry was like in terms of football decisions again i don't know much about football but i i'm not gonna quibble with him for that what do you think joel you think it was a bad decision? I mean, they won the Super Bowl the next year, but at that time, two years. There was a dark period.

They went 115. Okay, got it. Yeah, but if you win a Super Bowl ever after that decision, yeah, you're in the plus. I know Cowboys fans are a little misguided now because the franchise is kind of mired in mediocrity, but winning three Super Bowls in a 30-year span is pretty incredible yeah certainly so uh this uh oklahoma oil man and geologist bill sparks uh you know jerry jones is a gambler he hears the pitch he's like hell yeah let's fucking get oil and he he does uh strike it rich around uh 1970 1971. Jerry manages to put together about $200,000.

This gives a bill, bill Starks, the startup capital. He needs to drill for oil. They hit their first will well worth $4 million shortly thereafter. That well allows them to go back to the bank and borrow more money against the existing oil. That's there.

So they can borrow like a Canadian. It's been brought to my attention. What's it after today? Tomorrow. Hey, apologize to Joel. For what? Just to say you're sorry. I'm sorry.

What? How does he say everything else like a Canadian? He says sorry like a damn American. That's so weird. That's crazy. Fucking communist over here. All right, back to this geologist. So they make the hit, they keep drilling,

and then eventually Jerry sells the oil production company in 1976, but between 70 and 76, he makes about $50 million profit on Red Fork Sand. What if it was an oil production company? We make movies, but they're only adaptations of Upton Sinclair. In one of the articles, when they're talking about his oil, they literally write, and then when Jerry Jones invested in oil, he struck gold.

And it's like, how could you not see just saying he struck oil? You idiots. Black gold. Their movie about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was very controversial. Featured several Cowboys players

being killed. Too soon, Sean. Yeah. So basically, he makes 50 million dollars so he's a millionaire multi-millionaire by the early 70s and then he moves on to natural gas

and this is where the story gets interesting I would argue that's buying a football team but the natural gas really crazy for all you fans of natural gas may well be it. Really crazy. For all you fans of natural gas and heating

out there. For those of you arguing about British thermal units versus a thousand cubic square feet as a device of measuring the price of... For all you shale futures heads out there.

I like how 40 minutes into the episode Sean goes, this is where the story gets interesting. For all you shale futures heads out there. I like how 40 minutes into the episode, Sean goes, this is where the story gets interesting. Look, you stuck with us this far, and we appreciate you. Finally, the good stuff. Is Jerry Jones the owner of the Dallas Cowboys? Find out in part two.

He famously fired the legendary owner of the natural gas mine when he took it over. Was that also Tom Landry? Very unpopular decision, firing Tom Landry from the oil field. He keeps buying businesses where he can fire Tom Landry. Tom Landry goes on to franchise a Dairy Queen and Jerry Jones buys it to fire him all the employees are mad the blizzards were never the same

a mob forms out of the four for four line inside a Dairy Queen so he meets this guy Jerry Jones does he meets a guy named Mike McCoy in 1980 Mike McCoy is a natural gas expert. Jerry Jones puts a million dollars into a well at Latimer County. Literally?

Oklahoma. He's hiding it from the government. They make a $40 million gas hit. They make another $40 million hit at the San Joaquin Valley. It's really at the Akcoma Basin is where they really make their money. The Acoma Basin? What's that?

The Acoma Basin. Oh. It's in Oklahoma. So the story here is a big political scandal in Arkansas, and it's why people in Arkansas have very mixed feelings about Jerry Jones you know they like that he was you know a person from Arkansas who made it and put some money back to the community or whatever but uh I mean the long and short of the story is that he allegedly stole like three million dollars three hundred million dollars from Arkansas rate payers and taxpayers and I'll just kind of uh give the brought out lines here. So there's a public

utility in Arkansas called the Arkansas Louisiana Gas Inc. And this is the company that provides Arkansas residents with, you know, natural gas, heating, stove cooking, all this stuff. And so Jerry Jones's friend Sheffield Nelson becomes the president of ARCLA, Arkansas, Louisiana, National Gas Incorporated. And it's a state-regulated public utility, provides gas to people in Arkansas. But so what happens in 1981, Jerry Jones forms Arcoma Productions. They make Arcoma movies. Arcoma is what we have listening to you. What's that got to do with this show?

I swear, it's going somewhere. So what happens is just after Jerry Jones sets up this company, there's bids for 20 out of 22 uh 22 sites on the arcoma basin this is this natural gas reserve in oklahoma uh arc law the public utility was bidding for these sites um but jerry jones mysteriously just barely beats their bid on 20 out of the 22 so there's allegations of bid rigging essentially he was tipped off to what the arc law bids would be right and then he just barely beat them so they get the rights to 20 out of 22 sites on this basin and then this is 1981 in 1982 arc law sells him 28 500 acres of uh natural gas fields

that they had the rights to and the terms of the deal uh not only do they give him a below interest rate loan to make this purchase but the terms also state that arc law can't renegotiate the price if the natural gas uh market price goes down but jerry can renegotiate if the price goes up and arc law is obligated to buy every all of the gas that jerry jones is able to sell them they can't say no and uh then just the other part of this deal is essentially arc law even had existing contracts in the areas it sold uh guaranteeing delivery of gas at 55 cents per thousand cubic square feet jones's contract uh guarantees they have to buy all that he can sell them at four dollars fifty cent per thousand cubic square feet so you know this massive price increase the

net the market price was around three dollars at the time this was signed however in 1985 the prices drop and arc law is stuck holding the bag um and so basically uh by one estimate, ARCLA spent anywhere from $59 to $97 million too much for gas between 1983 to 89, and these costs are passed on to the rate payers, you know, the people paying heating bills in Arkansas. Who gave Jerry Jones this deal? So the guy, Sheffield Nelson, was the president of ARCLA, and he was sitting on the board,

and he convinces the board to go along with this. And then later on, Jerry Jones gave him a good package forones gave him a good package basically he set him up for life yes and um and just like you know there was like an investigation was done in this there was a memo that was sent before they signed this deal where um i think it's an arc law geologist said like hey we have this basin with a ton of natural gas we We have all these existing contracts. We should not do this deal. This came out later. But so basically, Jerry Jones's friend Sheffield Nelson gives him the sweetheart deal. And then Jerry Jones himself gets put on ARCLA's board. And Sheffield Nelson retires in 1984. And Jerry Jones votes for his retirement package, which is $3.6 million payout. So Jerry Jones gets this guy to give him a sweetheart deal.

He votes for his multimillion-dollar payout, and then Jerry Jones starts funding his political career. He would run for governor, and he'd be appointed to something by Mike Huckabee later on, but Jerry Jones becomes a major backer of him. And eventually what has to happen is because ArcLaw has this, like, boondoggle contract where they have to buy all the natural gas he can sell at above market prices, Sheffield Nelson leaves, and then the new president of ArcLaw in 1987 has to buy Jerry Jones out.

It's the only way to get out of the contract. He tells the public, the new president of ArcLaw, that he bought Jerry Jones out for $49 million. In actuality, he buys Jerry Jones jones out for 49 million in actuality he buys jerry jones out for 174 million so according to uh jim dent jerry jones made about 300 million dollars total profit on this deal wow at the expense of rate payers in arkansas well you guys do this podcast every week a different billionaire yeah and there there does seem to be like with jones at least launching in his football career his real wealth came from some shady multiplier. Does that

happen in a lot of the cases with your billionaires? Not always. Sometimes it depends on the billionaire but often it's a whole bunch of money up front from somebody they know and then they multiply that and that essentially becomes their billions. But in this case Jerry Jones kind of did that a couple

of times. Right. Well, I think it's an interesting thing with billionaires just doing this podcast. It's like there's always state support in some way. Yeah. You know, like, I mean, if you think about Jeff Bezos, like he's able to make billions because of the U.S. post office. Right. You know, so. Eventually they have to get into politics to continue the corruption that is funding their empire.

Right. So they either just pay explicit bribes or they just do political lobbying or whatever else. have to get into politics to continue right the corruption that is funding their empire right so they either just pay explicit bribes or they just do political lobbying or whatever else and again like this is part of jerry jones's story is like in the 80s he takes over arkansas politics he becomes a big player in republican politics in arkansas he even gives some money to bill clinton and they have just for fun a friendly relationship up until 1990 and these get him and uh the person he gave the payout to, they were friends long before this. Right, they knew each other.

So it's basically like... They were good old boys. It's a rub job. Yeah, it's that kind of Texan, Southern thing of like, the good old boys getting fucked up and setting each other up. Yeah, I mean, that's... The white pig. So, yeah.

I mean, this basically, here's how the story ends um he buys the dallas cowboys uh jerry jones um uh another republican politician is a guy named tommy robinson not to be confused with a famous british racist tommy robinson i'm tommy rob. I don't like Koreans. I think they always got a wrong aspect ratio. How am they going to look at my Instagram? No, you can't use the phone, you bloody paki. Look at Sean's grown-on impression.

Beautiful. So not this racist guy. That's going in our archive. You guys all know Tommy Robinson. Notorious racist Brit. We have international listeners. We have British listeners. We should do an episode on

Mr. Bean. That episode where Mr. Bean. That episode where Mr. Bean stumbles into control of an Arkansas public utility through a series of mishaps. Yeah. So Tommy Robinson was a, interestingly,

he was in charge of the Arkansas State Police for a time. So Jerry Jones was in the 80s. Jerry Jones was a big contributor to he was in charge of the arkansas state police for a time so uh jerry jones was in the 80s jerry jones was a big contributor to him apparently he had like state police provide security for jerry jones's daughter at like some sort of party or i'm trying to remember if it was like a prom or something but whatever the case so can you look that up whatever the case um uh this guy becomes a republican congressman from arkansas um with uh jerry jones's financial support and then one day in 1989 uh jerry jones meets him in washington and he says hey i um i want to run for governor of arkansas and jerry jones tells him yes you have my full support i'll back you 100 but then jerry jones's friend

sheffield nelson the guy at arclaw who gave him the sweetheart 300 million dollar deal right decides to run for governor so jerry jones backs him instead wow and this is kind of like the they're falling out with tommy robinson because you know up to this point jerry jones had been supporting him and so the only reason this comes out is in the republican primary tommy robinson having been betrayed by jerry jones blows the whistle on this sheffield Nelson deal. And then Bill Clinton's the governor. He has to launch an investigation because of the public attention. And then eventually, ARCLA is ordered to refund ratepayers in Arkansas about $21 million. And Sheffield Nelson wins the

Republican primary, but he's damaged by the scandal so bill clinton beats him in 1990 oh wow so he paved the way for for old bill yeah basically so we wouldn't have the clinton legacy if it wasn't for jerry jones if it weren't for jerry jones i never would have worked at comet ping pong but so apparently uh jerry jones and bill clinton even though jerry jones more supported republicans they were like casual friends who occasionally partied together in the the 80s um and then but when sheffield nelson runs for i wonder what they talked about uh they talked about jennifer flowers apparently

so when um when when uh sheffield nelson runs for governor against bill clinton their friendship they talked about Jennifer flowers apparently. So when, um, when, when, uh, Sheffield Nelson runs for governor against Bill Clinton, their friendship ends. But, uh,

what happens is Jerry Jones actually hires a private investigators to go after Bill Clinton in 1990. They see him with Jennifer flowers, but according to Jim Dent, uh, Jerry Jones has also been seen with Jennifer flowers, both heritable garden, both in little rock and, uh, Dallas. Jones has also been seen with Jennifer Flowers. Oh, really? Heritable Garden.

Both in Little Rock and Dallas. She gets around. Yeah. But anyways, he gets $300 million from this sweetheart deal and this is what allows him to buy the Dallas Cowboys. What you've all been waiting for. We're 50 minutes into a podcast. We just got to football,

which is why we invited Joel. That was a fun ride. I'm sure it'll be cut down considerably. This will be at the three-minute mark. How many times do you think he said Jerry Jones in that section? I'll do a hypercut every time Sean said Jerry Jones. Cut it together. Oh, dude, that'd be amazing.

I bet it's probably 250 times. You know what I've learned about editing? If I say he and then I want to cut something, it sounds disjointed when you just go from saying Jerry Jones to he and then you cut the first Jerry Jones. It goes right to he. So it's better to be annoying and just say Jerry Jones a ton of times. I was wondering. It makes sense. I just had to ask. why are you saying jerry jones and now like i have this weird asmr thing

another editing thing is uh i'm taking uh sean's impression and putting it in our sean saying ethnic slurs oh yeah master compilation the best that That's going to be our full year bonus. Full eight and a half hour edition. That's the Patreon, folks. You know, for $10 a month, give Sean a phone number, and he will use the slur of your choosing. He'll do the Gran Torino monologue. Man, remember that Gran Torino song?

Clint Eastwood wrote and sang a song that went over the end credits yeah it was like really like um neil diamondy yeah it was very neil youngy yeah that's what it was yeah it'd be great if it was though grand torino it's my car what if in the first draft of the Gran Torino movie there was no racism, but then Clint Eastwood got so mad that all the Asian people were such bad actors in that movie? That happened with Jennifer Lopez. One of her songs wasn't getting a lot of radio play, and then she added like four more N-words. And then the radio was like, this is a good song.

Really? What song? I think it was Jenny from the Block. I didn't know she says the N word in that song. Well, that's our mix. She does Yogi's version. When Yogi sings it. Oh, yeah. People got really mad at me when I did Jenny from the Block on karaoke.

Oh, yeah. So, 1989, Jerry Jones just made 300 million dollars from this deal and what does he do with his money he buys the dallas cowboys hr uh hr bumbright was the former owner of the dallas cowboys who apparently lost most of about half his fortune in the savings and loans collapse which we've talked about a fair bit on the michael milken episode but he was tied up in this massive ponzi scheme that michael milken put together and the cowboys weren't very successful this was before the television rights for football were the best asset in american entertainment yeah and he was losing roughly a million dollars a month on

this once great franchise they were pretty bad bad. They won Super Bowls throughout the 70s, 1980s, losing team throughout. Quick sidebar, sorry to interrupt, but the Jennifer Lopez track that has the N-word is the duet with Ja Rule, I'm Real. That's the track that she put the N-word in. Yeah,

was the N-word Ja Rule? Andy got it so um what happens is he takes the team in a profit making direct oh yeah so and also a hr bum bright the former owner his his savings and loan company what was his name yeah apparently his nickname is bum and apparently if you go to wikipedia it's called his name is bum bright but he's hr bum bright and the you know it's it's cool that like jones really made it his own right off the bat sure and right now present day being one of the 32 owners of an nfl team is the most exclusive club in the world. That's right.

And it was not the case when Jones bought in. So he immediately, he wasn't always a practice. Usually when you bought a team, you kept the status quo. He immediately fires two Hall of Famers. Tom Landry, Tech Schramm. They have the first pick in the draft. And they're kind of weird. Like if you were to just watch this.

Controversial moves. Yeah, even that they picked Troy Aikman first overall. draft and they do they they're kind of weird like if you were to just watch this controversial moves yeah even that they picked troy acheman first overall and they traded another first round pick for steve walsh so they had two blue chip quarterbacks at one time and like all their planning looks awful but they make this vulturous herschel walker trade where they leech a not as you know these teams they're just kind of accessories in a lot of cases. So, like, oh, we just want to make a playoff run. Give us Herschel Walker. And in that deal, he gets six first-round picks or something close to it.

And that's what sets him up for a great deal of success. And people were real pissed about that. They're like, how can you get rid of him? But those six picks got them the bowl. Also, the owner, H.R. Bumbright, the H.R. stands for his rectum. Shut the fuck up, Sean. Leave. You're done

with this podcast. Is that why his nickname is Bum? So, yeah. So, H.R. Bumbright has to sell. And so, he returns, Jerry Jones returns the team to profitability pretty quickly. He makes a lot of money. Essentially what allows him to become a billionaire is the Dallas Cowboys. He buys in and, you know, makes a ton of money off this football team.

And, again, the team, as Joel mentioned, was losing a million a month. So certainly some stuff had to be done. But I do just want to kind of go through some of the stuff from the book. Some of it's a little excessive. Well, I think the one thing that really stands out to me about his really – aside from the team success, the NFL took a chance when his broadcast deal was open, and he convinced the NFL to go with Fox. Right.

And in exchange for that, Fox has been very pro-Cowboys. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of television spots. Right, right. And then in terms of, like, there seems to be a pipeline for former players to get production jobs. Right, right, right, right, right, yeah.

Because there is this, like, the one thing about Jones is he's immensely loyal. Sure. Yeah, and, like, Jerry Jones is friends and friends with like Rupert Murdoch. And then Joel's mentioning this television deal that they struck with Fox because Rupert Murdoch was like very desperate to get a major sports franchise on his network, which was still kind of fledgling in the early nineties.

And apparently CBS was in like cost cutting mode. So Fox outbid them by like a billion dollars really for um the rights to the nfc and one super bowl um during the time when he was considering buying the chargers one of the reasons why he didn't was because the afc did not have as much tv coverage that was another one of the reasons why he didn't buy a team at the age of 23 that's the thing that's crazy to me about that part of the story is that at 23 he's like i want to buy a team with money I'm going to get from Jimmy Hoffa Pops. And his dad's like, no, don't do that. And he's like, Dad, you can't control me.

Fuck you, Jerry Jones. In what we talk about in the natural gas, I'm going to say thrill ride. You don't see many signs of him being a brilliant businessman. But in this NFL deal, you see an example of him going, oh, television is how this entity makes marketing. Two decades later, similarly, he says, television isn't really the way. It's the in arena experience is how you make money. So you see two pretty fantastic angles on situations that benefited 31 other people yeah yeah well so basically here's some of the cost-cutting stuff that he does and some of the revenue generating stuff uh according

to the jim dent book as of 1995 i don't know if it's changed nfl revenue sharing profits from luxury box sales are not shared with other teams so So Jerry Jones makes luxury boxes a major sales focus. And apparently the Cowboys Stadium, when he took it over, had one of the nicest press boxes in one of the best positioned in the league. So he kicks the press out and puts them on the upper deck, and then he sells that as a luxury box. To which I say, fuck yeah. He is absolutely right for that that that is a good decision

yeah um but so the other thing that he does that's kind of i mean it's genius but it's kind of fucked up jerry jones starts a company called pro seat and he starts selling cowboys tickets through his new company pro seat but what he does is he moves all of the season ticket holders to get a priority to people who buy their tickets through Pro Seat. And, of course, Pro Seat tacks on, like, a premium charge that goes to Jerry Jones. And then he also, like, crams seats together and moves seats around to add about 4,000 to 5,000 more premium seats to the stadium. Like Delta Airlines, isn't it? Exactly. to the stadium airlines exactly and so you know these are like there's uh season ticket holder lawsuits as a result because people who like paid for their season tickets are suddenly getting

moved or they're like being forced to rebuy season tickets through proceeds uh and pay this extra premium he recalls jerry jones does he takes back thousands of season tickets from former players coaches employees etc and one like a controversial one he takes back these season tickets um from the widow of cowboys assistant coach uh ermo allen who had been with the team 21 years and she was like paying the regular season ticket prices she wasn't even getting these for free but he takes back her tech season tickets and then tries to get her to buy it again through proceeds. And, you know, we mentioned, and he also, interestingly enough, he becomes the first Cowboys owner to sell advertising signage in the stadium.

I mean, like, you know. Yeah, but that's just like a, that's a product of the times, you know? Right. And other interesting thing I didn't know, he introduces beer and wine sales. Apparently before him, people would just bring cans of beer into the stadium. But he has to like lobby the local government because it's, you know, rather... Liquor license laws and stuff? Yeah, puritanical area.

So he has to like lobby them and pay a bunch of bribes. I mean, worth it. You sell your own liquor at the stadium. Absolutely. And I think you see like just his vision for football is pretty nuanced and multifaceted. And for a long time, he was one of only two owners who had football experience.

His kind of him and Jerry Richardson, who started the Panthers and was outed for a sexual assault scandal, but he had to sell his team, but he was powerful enough that he got to work in that his statue would remain up at the stadium into the terms of the sale. Yeah. Yeah, I think Jerry Jones just took football from a, hey, this is a game that you go see at your high school to making it the NFL version we see today. Yeah, and I think...

The statue of him is him handing you a non-disclosure agreement to sign. And there's a lot of like, he borrowed a little bit from Jerry Buss in terms of his relationships with players. There was a long, during the great Cowboys team, all the Cowboys players, they owned a house called the White House where they would go to have, It was just painted white and it was probably just because of the amount of cocaine that was on there. Like Michael

Irvin sneezed outside. It was called the White House because of who was not allowed to use the phone. It's like the white pig inn. Jones, he famously parties with players and stuff. I detracted from my original point because the coffee you made me was strong. But I think all these kind of, like, things with the season's ticket holders, the proceeds, the taking stuff back from the widows, it's that same kind of micromanaging, like, control all areas of your industry approach that allowed it to blow up.

Right. Like, that made him look like a kind of asshole in certain regards yeah i mean look he definitely made a profit and then like one other uh story here well actually two so the other thing he does is he requires season ticket holder in 1994 when they go to the playoffs he requires season ticket holders to prepay for two playoff games but uh one of those games was held in san francisco and then the normal nfl procedure would be automatic refunds but instead he made them contact the cowboys in order to get a refund just to try yeah and the snake yeah and uh that's um that's some

gorsmanship he also became the first nfl owner in history not to pay front office employees some sort of bonus financial bonus when their teams make the playoffs um and what he did to get around this is he awarded quote uh super bowl rings instead of bonuses to some employees however he uses uh uses Zircon's $90 value instead of diamonds, a $13,000 value like traditional Super Bowl rings have. Yeah, Jerry Jones is only buying secretaries a diamond if they earn it.

And just according to- How dare he take meals out of the exploited mine children? What if he was just so like child soldiers? What if Jerry Jones was just thinking like, yeah, you know, I just can't support these mines. I know the players want their diamonds,

but I think the rest of my employees are just gracious enough to understand. Like I see a guy who sees the best in people. Anyways, the point is here, and then one other quote, Randy Galloway of the Dallas Morning News as Jerry Jones, quote, treats his employees like shit. And I mean, it's just like...

That's a direct quote? That's a direct quote, yes. And so he definitely restored some profitability. He did a lot of cost cutting. And I think the shittiest thing he did was sue those workers comp players. Because, I mean, like I mean, fundamentally, my problem with sports owners in general is the product on the field that generates the money is the players and the revenue. Most of it goes to the owners. And especially in the case of football, where it's such a dangerous sport that causes cte you know it takes years off your life broken bones uh pain for the rest of your life you know all this stuff and jerry jones is like suing them to get back their one million dollar between the 16 of them workers comp payment you know so i mean you think the payers are going to build that stadium? And he also, the taxpayers, they...

Help fund the AT&T stadium? Yeah, not as bad as you would think, because it says it was $1.2 billion to build, and the taxpayers are on the hook for $65.3 million. I don't think that's terrible. It's still taxpayer money. That's going to a privately owned business yeah and so i mean you know it would be worse jerry you could have done worse

on that one but so we kind of mentioned the team's technically non-profit like the nfl i i think so i don't know how it works though uh no they are they're not profit but the nfl itself is non-profit. Okay. Okay. Well, and that's kind of the story. He takes it over. 1989, the first season, they go 1-15, but the next year, they do much better. They win Super Bowls in 93, 94. His friend who he brought in to coach, Jimmy Johnson.

Extends. He fires. Jerry Jones fires him, and apparently, to this day, hasimmy johnson on the ring of honor in the stadium though i read an article from june of this year that says he might finally put jimmy johnson in the ring of honor yeah but teams are too flippant about giving people like that that's just such a weird thing and uh then like so in 1989 they draft uh troy acheman first overall and then apparently they get like a great trade with the owner of minnesota who's described as a sucker they get the herschel walker trade um so they put a great team together um partly through luck of circumstance but you know uh you can't can't deny giving jerry some credit there but i think a lot of people

would make the argument again i'm not a football expert but that essentially he wanted to he wanted the credit he wanted to be the guy who's like oh he's the smart football guy instead of jimmy johnson and really to put him in perspective like he always has controlled all football operations he just kind of had some black marks with his team's relationship. And I see him as sort of like a neo-capitalist Al Davis. I think he's the NFL's Vince McMahon. I think that's fair to say. Yeah, and even right now, he made his big move with the television race. He made his big move with the stadium.

And now he was instrumental in the NFL's Los Angeles development. Sure, of course. Now he's pretty much –ger goodell he's not the commissioner of the nfl but he serves the interests of the 32 owners and in that group especially with richardson being ousted that jones is driving that ship 100 right yeah jones kind of from everything i've read jerry jones is the primary force behind the owners, you know, collectively. He's kind of like, what do you want to call it, the ringleader of the owners? Or definitely one of the most dominant personalities.

Well, it's nice to see solidarity. But I guess, like, you know, from, you know, the Jim Dent book only goes up to about 1995, so... Don't admit that. The only other... We've talked about other years. Yeah, Sean. I had some great research about First Amendment

audits. He's done nothing since 1923 years. Yeah, he's looking forward to the film Independence Day. But I guess my point was, you know, there's a lot of controversy about the Dallas Stadium. You know, there have been a lot of

rumors about Jerry Jones having affairs and this kind of thing. And we mentioned he's been seen in public with Jennifer. Just rumors, though. Yes. Rumors, more like people bragging. So just one other thing from the book. Jones is often seen in public with Susan Skaggs.

Again, this is back in 1995. An attractive sales and marketing employee at the stadium who is 20 years his junior. She is present day 65 sexy minks grandmother susan skaggs uh it is no secret that jones and skaggs have had more than a boss employee relationship although cowboys and although cowboys employees who fear for their jobs rarely talk about it jones and skaggs have been seen dining drinking and dancing at bars and restaurants throughout the dallas area for the last three years um skags travels with jones um even to stuff that is like not directly tied to the football club such as marketing seminars and meetings uh and uh skags uh is one of the was one of the highest paid

players on the cowboys front office making about about $100,000 a year in 1995. Still employed there. I'm looking at her LinkedIn right now. Oh, really? Yeah. See, that's the one thing about Jerry Jones. Sports is such a high turnover industry. Right.

People work for Jerry Jones for decades. Until he fires them. Yeah, but even still, Jason Garrett, most teams would have fired him five, six times already. Sure, truly. Before that, Barry Switzer brought a gun through airport security and he kept his job. Also, if you're going to have like an affair with a high profile person,

change your name from Skaggs. Cause that's, that's just a name that screams. I've got VD. Her LinkedIn is Skaggs Susan. He thought it was scabs and he was attracted to that. I'm anti-union. One thing I forgot to mention, Sheffield Nelson,

the guy that Jerry Jones got the sweetheart Arclaw deal with, Sheffield Nelson and Jerry Jones also invested in the guy McDougal, who was famous for the Whitewater scandal. Why does it have to be white? Yeah. So this McDougal guy sold land to Jerry Johnson and Sheffield Nelson, and then he went bankrupt. And then the company that bought out his assets, apparently the owner was friends with Jerry Jones and Sheffield, so they actually made a profit

on the whitewater uh deal or something from the guy who did the whitewater deal where the clinton's lost money on it do you know uh what happened with the whitewater scandal no yeah they murdered vince mcmahon yeah you're not vince yeah the only person who knows what happened with the whitewater scandal is named Vince Foster. But yeah, a random anecdote. But I guess, you know, what haven't we covered, Joel? Apart from the years 1995 and 2018, we've got almost everything here. Yeah, but we peppered in.

You have a big picture idea of what the man is and the many faces he has had over the years. I'll mention one thing. His entire family, from his kids to their kids, are now all in football relations, whether he's working for Dallas or other organizations. And if you thought nepotism was dead, Jerry Jones will prove you wrong. And you know, he tried to give the world shaky's pizza he didn't he didn't he didn't succeed but at the end of the day he gave his players shaky memories so we can praise him for

that shaky's pizza when you go to a pizza hut with cte or parkinson, I guess. That'd probably be the best way to go to a pizza place. If I went to a pizza place with seed to eat, I would forget I'm a vegetarian and then I'd be able to get a sausage pie. Would you like a murder suey slice? Remember when I went to Pizza Hut and sat in my car for four hours forgetting why I drove over there.

Is that everything? Yeah, I think so. Joel, again, thank you for being here and enlightening us on the NFL. Please advertise where people can find you. And if you would like, you may make some NFL picks. Oh, shit. I am at Joel Walkowski on Instagram, TheWalkowski on Twitter. Every week I do my NFL picks, do some kind of roasty jokes, and I'm sponsored by a casino. Ooh. And you can use my promo code at mybookie.ag to get 50% bonus on your deposit, SGP50. But go watch my picks

next week in the Super Bowl. I made $200 betting against the Cowboys last night. Pretty sweet. If you're wondering why Joel has been defending Jerry Jones all this episode. Yeah, you can bet against this motherfucker. You know they're going to lose

in the playoffs every year. It's so easy. But yeah, Ed, you can check out Joel's picks online. We'll put a link in the description. But I guess thank you for listening to Grubstakers. Next episode may or may not be a little late. Thanks for due to scheduling. But check the Twitter to see what's going on with that.

But as always, thank you for listening. And with that, I'm Yogi Paiwal. I'm Andy Palmer. Steve Jeffers. I'm Sean McCarthy. Thanks, Joel. Bye, guys. Bye.

Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch had a vision. He had a dream. Boy, was he going into a pretty established situation with the network. But boy, did he have courage, and he saw values that nobody saw. Thank you, Rupert. Thank you very much. Oh, Andy does drops?

Yeah. I take drops. I'm the drop guy. For the Cowboys, that's Amari Cooper. Nice. Nice. Nice. He had a nice game yesterday. Wasn't very good after all.

Ooh, terrible. Well, that's talent. An opera singer who tap dances and sings cowboy songs. I wonder if there's anything she isn't good at. Yes? Choosing what show to be on.