Happy 4th of July: Celebrate America by appreciating why the Cowboys are still America’s Team!

Happy 4th of July! We hope your day is filled with happiness as the nationally celebrated holiday allows us to get together and spend time with the people we love and watch collectively as we blow stuff up. Whether you are grilling up some steaks or your own concoction of menu items like RJ’s burger dogs (we don’t judge), there will be some good food to be eaten. And don’t forget to provide a safe place for your animals if they are sensitive to loud noises as there will be fireworks.

It’s a time to celebrate America, so why not use this opportunity to remind fans why the Cowboys are called and should continue to be called America’s Team.

Most know the origin, it happened in the late ‘70s. After the Cowboys had just lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XIII in 1978, NFL films put together a video doing their best to describe the Cowboys. And at that moment, these iconic words were spoken...

They are the Notre Dame of professional football. A national team whose popularity extends from coast to coast. No matter where the Cowboys travel, there are always friends to greet them. Their players are heroes to the young, and their success and style have gained them a following across the United States. They appear on television so often that their faces are as familiar to the public as presidents and movie stars. They are the Dallas Cowboys, “America’s Team”.

My fandom is living proof of that statement being a real thing. I grew up in California. My favorite baseball and basketball teams are both California teams. But at the time I started following sports, it was the Cowboys team that graced my television set. I’m literally a Cowboys fan because they were America’s Team.

Of course, not everyone likes our beloved Cowboys. In fact, they’re also one of the most hated teams, and many people will scoff at the notion that they are referred to as America’s Team. How arrogant can those Cowboys be anyway?

Well, for starters, the Cowboys didn’t start calling themselves that. As stated above, NFL films came up with it. Head coach Tom Landry wasn’t a fan as he felt it just gave others more fuel to come after them. He was right. But whether he liked it or not, the Cowboys earned that nickname because of their popularity. We should add, that it was right after a Super Bowl defeat and not a win, so they didn’t get that label at the height of their on-field success. Again, it’s about popularity.

And that is why the Cowboys remain America’s Team. Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, the Cowboys have a huge draw. Here are some compelling reasons why they deserve to hold the title of America’s team.

People can’t stop buying their stuff

Fans of the Cowboys love to represent as they regularly open their wallet to add more swag to their collection. I know I’m guilty of it as I’m in the process of turning my new work office into Cowboys central.

They were the top-selling NFL team in sports merchandise in 2021, including being no. 1 overall in best-selling team jerseys from NFL Shop. Just check out the amount of blue from this friendly little best-selling team map.

The fans keep showing up

Whether you show up to root for them or against them, the crowds continue to file into AT&T Stadium. The Cowboys had the largest home attendance (747,368) in the NFL last year despite having one fewer game than half the teams in the league. They averaged 93,641 fans last year, which is 15,430 more than the next highest team (Green Bay Packers).

They are valuable

Since the year 2016, the Cowboys have emerged as the most valuable sports franchise, currently worth $5.7 billion. Most valuable sports team, not just the NFL team. They are worth more than the New York Yankees or any of the big-name soccer teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid.

The Cowboys are must-see TV

The Cowboys have the fourth-largest stadium (Giants, Commanders, and Packers have more) with a seating capacity of 80,000, so that certainly helps with the large attendance, but it’s not just the extra space that explains the draw. The Cowboys are a cash cow for NFL ratings and the TV networks know it. Of the ten most heavily watched games last season, the Cowboys were involved in five of them. It doesn’t matter where they are as people across America tune in to watch the Cowboys. And that is why we’ll continue to see them placed into primetime and game-of-the-week time slots.

They win

There’s a lot of talk about how this team hasn’t done anything since the ‘90s, but that is simply not true. While they haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1995, the Cowboys still do a lot of winning. Going back to 2003, the Cowboys have a record of 171-134 (56%), which ranks them as the eighth-highest winning percentage team since that mark. Additionally, they have a franchise-winning percentage of 57.2% which was recently eclipsed by the Packers by just one-tenth of a percent. So, as “bad” as the Cowboys supposedly are, they’re still winning enough games to remain one of the most successful teams of all time. Yes, the nickname of America’s Team was earned nearly 50 years ago, but they aren’t doing much to lose it.