National Football League

Jerry Jones explains why there were so many 49ers fans at AT&T Stadium

Published Sep. 9, 2014 8:28 p.m. ET

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Jerry Jones wanted no part of talking about all of the red inside AT&T Stadium after the Dallas Cowboys lost 28-17 to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

After having a day to research why 49ers fans seemed to occupy almost half of the venue, the Cowboys owner and general manager had a much lengthier response.

In fact, Jones spent four minutes giving his explanation on Tuesday.

"There's several things to point out," Jones said on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. "We're so used to seeing all that blue color when we travel away. We see it all the time. And there's a lot of it. Some places we go, Arizona, it feels like a home game. So we know the kind of interest that a team like San Francisco has.

"Several dynamics going on here. A lot of times we look at the stands, you look back over in the party pass area, you're only looking in the stands directly. You're looking at maybe – and don't hold me to this – 60 percent of our fans that are there in the stands. You got people in the suites, you got them in the party pass area, so you're looking at that. Then, let's say you got people sitting there, well, when we sell a suite or seats, we sell to about 11,000 or 12,000 people that write a check, 11,000 or 12,000 that counts. Not 80,000, 11,000 or 12,000.

"The point is that you can have 5,000 or 6,000 people that decided for their particular group or family, they're going to sell. And you can make a big difference in the terms of the people that are in there. Our stadium is very attractive as far as people picking a game that they might want to come to Dallas to be with their team if they can afford to make that trip. We think that happens. It happened with Pittsburgh last time we played Pittsburgh, we won that game. Still, it happens like that. You do get a good following.

"The other thing that happened is our ticket, that's the highest premium that we've had since we've opened the stadium for a football game. We had 91,000 people there. And a $90 ticket was going for $300, for example. We might have fans that might take the premium, watch the game on TV. [It would] be a good way to average out for the year for them on their overall price of watching the Cowboys.

"I do see how it happened. The secondary market is so sophisticated today. You can just about manage in and out of that secondary market with your tickets as well as you can getting them through the mail. All of that came to play and it resulted in a great turnout. The other things is, San Francisco has a lot of fans here. A lot of people from California have moved to Texas and moved to North Texas because of economic opportunity. And then you have, what we've always known in the NFL, you'll see a father and a son, and you'll see the son be a fan of the rival to the team of the father. That's throughout the NFL. It happens all the time. We see it in New York. That's why we see Cowboys fans up there against the Giants. With San Francisco, because of our great rivalries in the '90s, you have a lot of families that normally might have a Cowboys jersey on, that boy or girl might put on a San Francisco jersey."

Jones made it clear that even though it was a good day for ticket sales, the last thing he wants is Cowboys fans losing interest in their team.

"Certainly I'm interested in and want to have a team better than 8-8," Jones said. "And it drives me. It drives my decisions. It drives everything we do. We've been in a rut, an 8-8 rut. I'm going to tell you, it's not necessarily a given you're going to go 8-8. We know there's a bunch of teams in the NFL that aren't. With that in mind, though, that's not enough.

"To be down to two games the last three seasons, really two games, and sit here and not be able to win one of them to get in the playoffs is not good."

Follow Jon Machota on Twitter: @jonmachota

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