The latest NFL valuations have arrived, and to the shock of literally no one, the Dallas Cowboys are still the king of the hill. Jerry Jones famously bought the franchise in the late 1980s for $125 million, when it was hemorrhaging almost $1 million a month. He turned the NFL landscape on its head, marketing his world championship organization himself, striking deals outside of the NFL and winning court battles that changed the way the league did business.
Since buying the club, it is now valued at 100 times the original investment, as Sportico has released it’s latest NFL projections and sees the team worth $12.8 billion. The next closest franchise is the Los Angeles Rams, worth over $2 billion less, at $10.43 billion. In related news, the team has yet to announce a new contract extension for all-world defender Micah Parsons.
The huge jump in the Cowboys’ valuation from last season, when Dallas became the first club to surpass $10 billion, is almost certainly related to the sale cost from another league. The Los Angeles Lakers had been valued around $7 billion, but sold for over $10 billion earlier in 2025. That proved that valuations are still on the lower end of the actual amount that can be netted by a sports owner, and of cours rising tides raise all boats.
The Jones family is in the business of making money, first and foremost, and doing whatever it takes to win a championship second. The team recently had a red carpet event to celebrate next week’s release of the Netflix special chronicling Jerry Jones’ purchase of the team and the rise and fall of their early 1990s dynasty. In the meanwhile, the team’s best player, Parsons, continues to fight to become the league’s highest-paid non QB.
Earlier this summer Cowboys Wire chronicled how the Cowboys actually make more money by not signing a player early, investing those millions in high yield areas, and then still paying the player way more a year to 15 months later.
If the NFL didn’t force teams to place guaranteed money in escrow, where it can’t draw interest for the team, the Joneses likely would alter their approach.
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Cowboys valuation soars close to $13 billion, still not rich enough to pay Parsons
Reporting by K.D. Drummond, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
