Mormon Fun Fact: President Benson and the Dallas Cowboys
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Mormon Fun Facts
Mormon Fun Facts is an occasional segment here on Duo CItizenship dealing with little known facts about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Disclaimer: None of the information presented on Duo Citizenship should be construed as facts.
In 1989, then President of the Mormon Church, Ezra Taft Benson made a bid the purchase the Dallas Cowboys NFL franchise from then Owner, Bum Bright (I’m not making that up, that was the guy’s name). Bright had been accepting bids for the team for the past few months, and Benson had decided that it was time for God’s church to acquire God’s football team.
President Benson had made the bid with the intention of moving the team from their home in Dallas to the Salt Lake Valley. Benson expedited plans to renovate and rename Cougars Stadium (now called “LaVell Edwards Stadium“) as Cowboys Stadium. Benson also expedited plans to paint the Cowboys logo on the silver metal roof of the Tabernacle in downtown Salt Lake City.
However, the NFL’s lawyers had many concerns about the Church acquiring the franchise. They were afraid the Church would insist on only having games on Monday night and not on the sabbath. This caused ABC, the exclusive broadcaster of “Monday Night Football“, to threaten to pull their broadcasting contract with the NFL, losing millions of dollars for the league.
That was when Paul Tagliabue, a lawyer for the NFL at the time, stepped in. He proposed to the franchise owners to donate money to a gentleman by the name of Jerry Jones so that he could acquire the team, keep them in Dallas, and playing games on Sunday.
The money gathered was laundered through Jones’ to that point unsuccessful oil and gas prospecting company. Jones acquired the Dallas Cowboys, outbidding the Church by $50 million, after the Church failed to sell Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) to Ore-Ida for $35 million, who planned to turn the land into a potato plantation for tater tots (Frankly, a better use for otherwise wasted land). Paul Tagliabue was awarded for saving the Cowboys by being elected the Commissioner of the league that same year.
