Cowboys Looking For Loan To Help Refinance New Stadium

Cowboys Want $350M For Refinancing,  Cost Overruns For New Stadium

The Cowboys are "seeking to borrow" $350M by December 1 that would help "refinance $126[M] the team borrowed last year through the now-imploded auction-rate securities market," according to sources cited by Daniel Kaplan of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Sources added that the money would also "add new debt to cover cost overruns at the team's $1.2[B] stadium that is set to open next year." A source said, "Everyone is looking at the Cowboys’ deal. It is a huge bellwether. This is one of the only deals, period, in the market (sports or otherwise).” Sources said that Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones and team lender Bank of America on October 27 "hosted more than a dozen banks at the suite sales center adjacent to the under-construction stadium ... offering a deal priced 2.5[%] over the London Interbank Offered Rate." The team and BofA want the other banks "to buy pieces of the loan," a process called syndication. The Cowboys and BofA declined to comment. Kaplan notes sports debt deals "have been nearly nonexistent since the credit markets seized up in September" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/10 issue).