Cowboys

Arlington built its identity around a football stadium before it built much else, and AT&T Stadium now sits at the centre of that arrangement, the third home the Cowboys have used since the franchise entered the NFL. Clint Murchison, Jr. and Bedford Wynne secured the expansion vote in 1960 by buying the rights to the Washington Redskins' fight song from George Preston Marshall, a manoeuvre that got Dallas a team before it had a nickname settled — Steers and Rangers were both considered before Cowboys stuck.

The Tom Landry years shaped what the club became: twenty consecutive winning seasons, three Super Bowl losses that earned Dallas the "Next Year's Champions" tag before Super Bowl VI finally delivered a title. "America's Team" came later, coined by NFL Films producer Ed Werder in 1977. It was the 1990s that gave the label real weight, when Jimmy Johnson turned the Herschel Walker trade into a roster built around Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin — the Triplets — and Dallas won three Super Bowls in four seasons under Johnson and Barry Switzer.

Jerry Jones has owned the club since 1989, when he paid $140 million for it; Mike McCarthy took Dallas to an NFC Championship appearance in the 2021 season before Brian Schottenheimer replaced him in 2025.