Professional sports are serious business. Eric Johnson should address it

We recently learned that two professional sports teams are headed to Dallas and Mayor Eric Johnson is trying to attract a third.

Recently, Johnson advocated for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs to consider moving to Dallas. Perhaps the mayor was joking or picking on the Chiefs after voters recently rejected a sales tax initiative to pay for, among other things, renovations to Arrowhead Stadium. The mayor apparently hopes the team will return to its original home, the Cotton Bowl, where they were the Dallas Texans.

In 2022, Johnson tweeted similar proposals to the San Diego Chargers.

This month, officials announced that Dallas Trinity FC, a women’s soccer club that is part of the new USL Super League, will play in the Cotton Bowl.

These are promising developments and good news for Dallas. But if the mayor wants to spend time on sports, he should work to keep the Mavericks and Stars in Dallas. These are the only teams currently playing in Dallas; even Southern Methodist University plays in University Park.

The Mavericks last delivered a championship to the city in 2011, and the Stars did so back in 1999. Those are the only major professional sports world titles won by Dallas-based teams.

Johnson noted, “Dallas was named the best sports city in the United States because we play to win.” The appointment to which the mayor referred was for the sports business journal. The article specifically highlighted the importance of the region, not specifically the city of Dallas, noting: “The market’s sports business footprint, which includes Arlington, Fort Worth, Frisco, and several U.S. census-designated suburbs. , it’s growing day by day.”

Dallas has a somewhat tortured history with its mayors and professional sports. Perhaps the only blemish on J. Erik Jonsson’s notable service as mayor was his unwillingness to support a downtown football facility exclusively for the Cowboys. Jonsson was a passionate supporter of the arts and not a sports fan. According to my father, who served with him on the Dallas City Council in the late 1960s, Jonsson was unfazed by the team’s loss, considering it minor.

Meanwhile, Irving Mayor Robert Power and Councilman Dan Matkin (later mayor when the stadium opened) mobilized the city to approve a $35 million bond for Texas Stadium. All five of the franchise’s Super Bowl wins occurred during his time playing in Irving.

In 2004, the Cowboys explored multiple sites in the city of Dallas. In 2010, Jerry Jones said publicly that the decision to move to Arlington was the result of Mayor Laura Miller not submitting a competitive bid. The mayor had previously opposed the Victory and American Airlines Center project, and the lack of a compelling bid made the decision to move to Arlington much easier.

Arlington had the help of Robert Cluck, its ever-present mayor, who welcomed the Cowboys with open arms and galvanized public determination to spend the money to beat the Cowboys in the same way they had previously chosen the Rangers.

The Rangers are in Arlington thanks to the tremendous efforts of Tom Vandergriff, who was mayor from 1951 to 1977. Now Arlington has a World Series to prove it. Interestingly, my father went to New York to meet with the baseball commissioner and represent the city of Dallas because Jonsson wasn’t interested.

Other Dallas mayors have made concerted efforts on behalf of professional sports in the past. Bob Folsom was a star at Sunset High School and went on to star in football at West Point and SMU, where he remains the only four-sport specialist: football, basketball, baseball and track.

Folsom, along with my father, owned the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association from 1967 to 1971. That venture failed largely due to poor facilities.

“The Convention Center Arena was not a good place to play,” said the mayor’s son, Steve Folsom. “It didn’t look like professional basketball and the Dallas fans didn’t accept it.”

Recently, the city of Dallas saw fit to subsidize the WNBA’s Dallas Wings to the tune of $19 million to play at the Convention Center. The city competed for a franchise that had attendance of just 4,600 per game last season and fewer than 4,000 the season before. Despite the sport’s growing popularity, the WNBA is heavily subsidized by the NBA and loses money each year. How the team will overcome what the Chaparrals could not is a puzzle that was not solved by the Dallas Diamonds (1979-81 and 1984) of the Women’s Professional Basketball League.

The Diamonds were blessed with the top pick in the draft and selected the Caitlin Clark of the era, Nancy Lieberman (perhaps still the best all-around player in the history of the sport). The Diamonds reached a championship series, but not before moving from the Convention Center to Moody Coliseum. The team, however, was short-lived.

Folsom and his sponsors were able to sell the Chaparrals, who became the San Antonio Spurs and now have five NBA titles. It will be interesting to see if a third professional team can somehow survive playing at the Convention Center. I suspect not. I hope that citizens expect an accounting of their investments.

Folsom and the Dallas City Council of the late 1970s worked together in a concentrated manner, hoping to land professional basketball and hockey teams. Steve Folsom told me, “There wasn’t a 100% chance the city would have a team if it had an arena, but there wasn’t a chance if it didn’t build one.”

Mayor Folsom and others worked with the Hunt family on the Reunion Arena project.

“The meeting was a great place and the fans came to support the Mavericks there, fulfilling my father’s vision for basketball in Dallas,” Steve Folsom said.

Folsom and the council also created the largest arts district in the country during the same period, achieving one of Jonsson’s main goals.

Ron Kirk followed Folsom’s lead by boldly endorsing an abandoned urban project that became Victory Park. Kirk helped lead a successful election for $140 million in bonuses. His leadership was vindicated when the city retired the bonds in 2011, 17 years earlier. The mixed-use district has been a tremendous success, but the loss of the Mavericks and Stars would be a crushing blow.

There is a lot of work to do to maintain these teams. The threat of leaving is always real. Non-DART cities have an extra cent of sales tax money to attract teams.

The mayor has also created an ad hoc committee on professional sports recruiting and retention. There is no task that a government committee cannot extend endlessly.

The definition of a working group and ad hoc committee is the same: a government entity that takes a year to recognize the obvious. The task forces are not aligned with the way the city is actually set up. They play with the media cycle, instead of generating real impact.

However, task forces appear to be Johnson’s approach to the biggest issues facing the city. He has created task forces for homelessness, violent crime, ethics reform, and innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact, I think the task forces are the main hallmark of Johnson’s tenure as mayor.

The Dallas Cowboys certainly wouldn’t look favorably on a second franchise in this market.

“Well, I like the mayor,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. The Dallas Morning News. “I like it personally, but it doesn’t have the depth. He doesn’t have the knowledge that others have about how unique Dallas is and how we enjoy the interest in the Cowboys. We wouldn’t want to dilute that when it comes to Dallas if he knew as much and had dedicated as much time to sports as I do.”

The local sports property is a small club. The mayor doesn’t need to irritate any of the club members when he needs to keep the Mavericks and Stars in town.