Sport: Dallas Gusher

The Cowboys bring big bucks

Bought by Millionaire Oilman Clint Murchison for $600,000 in 1960, the Dallas Cowboys were sold for some $75 million last week to an eleven-member local consortium headed by Multimillionaire H.R. (“Bum”) Bright, who likened the purchase to art collecting (“You can enjoy it even though you didn’t paint it”), and promised not to call any plays. “It will provide some return but not a good one,” said Bright, whose 17% constitutes the largest share. “You would do better in Government bonds.”

Perhaps, but the price of a pending sale of the Denver Broncos is reportedly not much lower. The Dallas transaction, largest in sports history, includes $20 million for the remaining 65 years on the lease to operate Texas Stadium, where Bright, 63, is shortly expected to announce a building boom in luxury boxes, the sale of which could bring $40 million (one stadium box recently went for $1 million). Real Estate Executive Craig Hall, 33, a 10% holder, said, “Nobody is looking to take large dividends. The investment will continue to appreciate if the team is allowed to maintain its standards of quality.”

Regarding that last point, Tom Landry, the only man to coach the Cowboys since the National Football League awarded Dallas an expansion franchise 24 years ago, sounded skeptical. “I don’t think anything is ever the same,” Landry said. A model owner, Murchison was patient in the beginning and unobtrusive to the end. He decided last year to sell the team to settle the estate of his late brother and because of his own ill health. Although Dallasite WO. Bankston, the largest Lincoln-Mercury dealer in the U.S., was unsuccessful in his bid to acquire the most recognizable property in Texas, he said proudly, “At least there’s not another city in the U.S. where a man could have a $600,000 investment and sell it for $75 million.”