If the NFL is a pantheon of gods and monsters, Jerry Jones is Mephistopheles in a pressed suit and Texas boots. Part villain, part genius, and always hungry for a bigger stage. The Dallas Cowboys’ owner is famously hated by rival fans, Dallas loyalists, and sometimes even his own family of ex-coaches and players.

But if you ask Jones, controversy isn’t just the rent he pays for superstardom; it’s the secret sauce that turned the Cowboys from a losing joke into a $12.8 billion sports empire. Sometimes the devil’s in the dollars, and the biggest gambler in the NFL knows exactly what he is (or isn’t doing) every step of the way.

The hidden gambit: How $10 million changed NFL history

Before Jones stormed into Valley Ranch, the team was hemorrhaging nearly $1 million a month and flirting with bankruptcy. Even Donald Trump famously passed up a $50 million deal for the franchise back in 1984, saying he felt “sorry for the poor guy who is going to buy” the team. But in 1989, Jones bet the farm on a handshake deal that “took about 30 seconds” to cement. He dished out a whopping $140 million and bought the Cowboys from Bum Wright. But a twist was on the way as soon as the deal happened.

In an exclusive interview with The Dallas Morning News, Jones revealed something he has kept under wraps for more than three decades. The morning after the deal, as Jones notes, “When I woke up, my first thought was ‘My God, what have I done?’” Just then, his phone rang with a call from Wright with a way out. “He said, ‘Jerry, I have someone who says that whatever agreement you and I have, if I take your name off and put their name on it, they’ll give you $10 million to go back to Little Rock.’” If anything, this only solidified Jones’ decision. He turned away from the $10 million escape hatch with a simple “Thanks, but no thanks.” Jones was determined to “work in the business of the sport,” and he delivered in spades, making the Cowboys the most valued franchise in the NFL by a landslide.

The moment he signed, Jones started swinging the axe: firing legendary coach Tom Landry, gutting bloated payrolls, and restructuring the front office with all the bedside manner of Don Corleone. That $10 million wasn’t just a line item. It was the wedge that let Jones seize the Cowboys in an era where no investor (save for the person who made the counteroffer) wanted in. The Cowboys’ financials were so dire that banks had begun foreclosure proceedings. Jones gambled, won, and then some. The Cowboys now sit at a record $12.8 billion, as per Sportico, with a staggering 9,043% return on Jones’ original investment.

Selling the brand: bold moves and controversies

Here’s the unsweetened truth: Jerry Jones didn’t save the Cowboys by chasing Super Bowls. In fact, the team hasn’t won a championship since 1996. He transformed the Cowboys into America’s most valuable sports brand by selling something far more lucrative: outrage, drama, and spectacle. Football games are only played 17 days a year, but the Dallas Cowboys are a 365-day media circus by Jones’ design.

Jones himself admitted it recently. “The Cowboys are a soap opera 365 days a year. When it gets slow, I stir it up… There is controversy. That controversy is good stuff in terms of keeping and having people’s attention.” This confession, marked with a Cheshire Cat grin, showed Jerry’s genius. He’s perfectly aware that every headline, every feud and firing, every reality TV-style moment is money in the bank, and he owns it with pride.

He wasn’t just throwing out bold statements, though. Jones was decades ahead of the league by making direct sponsorship deals, brokering partnerships with Nike and Pepsi outside the NFL’s revenue-sharing strategies, and yes, even serving beer before it was cool. He realized every argument and every scandal (‘soap opera’ as he calls it) was oxygen for the franchise’s brand.

The blueprint of an empire: stadium deals, merch, and national obsession

Jones didn’t do it all alone, and every single move wasn’t a stroke of genius either. Still, the man re-wrote the NFL business playbook. He beefed up local revenues, turned AT&T Stadium into an entertainment palace, and pushed the boundaries on personal branding and merchandising. Today, the Cowboys generate $800 million a year in local revenue, double the nearest competitor. If the NFL is a series of tourist attractions, it’s safe to say Jerry turned Dallas into its Disney World.

The Herschel Walker mega-trade? A stroke of genius, stacking draft picks to launch a ’90s dynasty. Though the dynasty didn’t last, the revenue machine sure did. Every cut, every contract squabble, every wild rumor keeps the cameras rolling and the cash flowing, just as Jones intended.

As NFL valuations spike, the rest of the league, like it or not, copies the Jones blueprint. You may hate him, you may love to hate him, but if you take your eyes off Jerry Jones for just one minute, rest assured, he’ll find a way to drag you back into the circus. When it comes to building a $12.8 billion sports empire, Jerry Jones has made devils and doubters his best unpaid publicists. The Cowboys are proof that, in the big business of American sports, controversy isn’t the enemy; it’s the show.

And the show, as Jerry says, never stops.