While Jerry Jones and his sister were being raised above the Arkansas grocery store their father owned in the 1950s, he learned the value of showmanship. His father built bandstands in the store for musical performances that were broadcast while shoppers picked up bread and milk and looked for ripe produce.
More than 70 years later, Jones has used his knowledge of branding and flair to transform the N.F.L.’s Dallas Cowboys into a corporate colossus. The team he bought for $140 million in 1989 is now considered the world’s most valuable sports franchise, worth $10 billion or more.
Jones’s life is the subject of an eight-episode docuseries, “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys,” that premieres Tuesday on Netflix. It explores his ownership of the Cowboys through the prism of the 1990s, when the team won three Super Bowls and cemented its passionate fan base.
In an interview with The New York Times, Jones, 82, said he had applied the lessons he gleaned from his father.
“My dream from the get-go was to try and create ways, 365 days a year, for people to engage in what we’re doing,” Jones said.
The Cowboys have extended their reach beyond the five-month N.F.L. season for decades. In 1992, Dallas became the first team to allow a camera into the room when team executives selected a player during the N.F.L. draft. Since 2006, the auditioning process for the team’s cheerleaders has been recorded for a reality television series.
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