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From the archives: The Star

FROM THE ARCHIVES: The following are excerpts from SportsBusiness Journal’s coverage of the opening of The Star in Frisco, Texas.

The Dallas Cowboys’ new headquarters and practice facility, high-profile anchors for a mixed-use development in north Texas, expands the team’s real estate interests to greater heights and creates a new model in the NFL for turning a team’s internal operations into a major attraction.

The Ford Center at The Star, the official name of the complex, is part of a 91-acre development in Frisco, one of the country’s fastest-growing communities. In a cutting-edge deal, the Cowboys teamed with the city of Frisco and its independent school district to build a 12,000-seat indoor stadium, two six-story office towers, and 150,000 square feet of specialty retail and restaurant space. The stadium and office towers, of which the Cowboys will take up 75,000 square feet of space and lease the remaining 325,000 square feet, open in August 2016. Some of the retail outlets open later next year.

Separately, the Cowboys partnered with Omni Hotels to build a 300-room property at Ford Center that opens in 2017. The Cowboys plan to market the overall complex as a year-round destination for fans, tourists and corporations.

As part of their business plan, the Cowboys will extend the robust business they do on non-game days at AT&T Stadium to multiday conferences at their new headquarters. In Frisco, for example, companies could run presentations in the same theater room Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett uses for team meetings. They could conduct a sales rally tied to a flag football game on the stadium’s field, and cap it off with a group dinner at the Cowboys Club, the team’s private membership restaurant.

“This idea of a two- to three-day corporate retreat where we can create a unique experience here is a business we’re going to attack,” said Chad Estis, the Cowboys’ executive vice president of business operations.

For the Jones family, owners of the Cowboys and Blue Star Development, the family’s real estate company, the Frisco project marks new territory by extending its reach into hotel ownership and management of the upscale Cowboys Club, which will overlook the team’s two outdoor practice fields.

— Don Muret, Nov. 16, 2015

Riding in the back seat of his F-150 pickup as it kicked up dust on a tour of a 91-acre construction site, Stephen flashed back to the day last summer when he saw about 50 trucks lined up along the property’s perimeter, ready to clear trees and dig holes.

“And look at it now,” he said, cocking his head to get a clear view of the rising steel and concrete that will make up the $350 million headquarters the Cowboys expect to occupy next fall. “I can’t tell you how excited we are about this deal here. I really think it’s going to pay off in spades.”

The Cowboys’ latest “baby,” and biggest undertaking, is The Star, which opened last year.
Photo by: JAKE DEAN / DALLAS BUSINESS JOURNAL

The project off the North Dallas Tollway in Frisco is unlike any in the NFL, anchored by an indoor football stadium that the team will share with the local high school district and flanked by office space overlooking two practice fields. There’s also an Omni hotel and a Cowboys-branded fitness facility, along with space for retail and restaurants.

Along with the potential to create a new revenue stream from year-round Cowboys activities, the complex — called The Star — stands as testament to a rare shift in roles between Stephen and the family patriarch.

Typically, it’s Jerry tugging the sled toward the edge of the slope and Stephen nudging it back. On The Star, it was Stephen ready to go all in, urging his father to build more than a self-contained practice complex like others around the NFL.

Jerry balked at first, still smarting from building a $1.2 billion stadium in the midst of a banking crisis. But his son kept pushing, just as his father had pushed so many times before.

“My father, who risked everything he had to buy the team, has now in some instances become a little risk averse,” Anderson said. “You couldn’t blame him for saying, ‘Been there, done that, not willing to do it again.’ This [training complex] has been the largest financial commitment that my father has made since buying the team — even more so than AT&T Stadium. And quite frankly, at his age, he doesn’t need to take that kind of risk. So how do you convince him that you should?

“I think it’s all how you approach it. And I think Stephen has a great manner in how he lays that out, how he walks through why it’s worth it and why it’s not worth it and balances that decision-making process. Stephen led the charge on this and got my father behind it.”

— Bill King, Sept. 28, 2015

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