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composite image of Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban, and the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium in Texas
Mark Cuban once gave the NFL approximately 10 years to implode under the weight of its own greed. It is now 2026, the league is printing money and Cuban may be preparing to buy part of the $13 billion Dallas Cowboys, which is one of the more expensive ways imaginable to delete an old take.
The Mark Cuban who once warned that football fans would eventually become sick of football is now open to owning a piece of the Cowboys. Apparently the NFL’s collapse has been postponed until after his investment paperwork clears.
Mark Cuban, Jerry Jones, and Dallas Cowboys Ownership
Cuban and Jerry Jones are both entertaining the idea of a minority stake, although there is no indication that an actual deal is close.
“I’m sure our Harbinger fund would be open to it,” Cuban said.
Jones is not currently shopping pieces of the franchise around like slices of pizza, but Cuban is apparently one of the few people who could make him consider sharing the box.
“I have all the respect in the world for him,” Jones said of Cuban, later adding, “Mark leads the way in that.”
This is not a done deal. Cuban’s Harbinger Sports Partners is also not currently one of the private-equity groups approved to purchase pieces of NFL franchises, meaning the league would have to approve the structure or Cuban would need to invest through a different arrangement.
Still, the fact that this conversation is happening is objectively hilarious.
Cuban’s NFL Prediction Aged Like Milk In A Hot Car
Back in 2014, Cuban believed the NFL was flying dangerously close to the sun by stuffing football onto as many nights of the week as possible.
“I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion,” Cuban said during his infamous 2014 warning.
He then delivered the line that would follow him for the next decade:
“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”
Cuban’s argument was that the NFL would oversaturate the market. Fans would grow tired of Thursday games, Saturday games, Sunday games, Monday games and whatever other night Roger Goodell discovered while staring at a calendar.
It was not a completely insane theory. It was just spectacularly wrong.
The Cowboys were valued at approximately $3.2 billion when Cuban made the prediction. Forbes now estimates they are worth $13 billion, making them the most valuable sports franchise on Earth despite not reaching an NFC Championship Game since the 1995 season.
The NFL’s 2025 regular season averaged 18.7 million viewers per game, its second-highest figure since Nielsen began tracking the league in 1988. Viewership increased 10% from the previous season.
That is less of an implosion and more of an explosion that accidentally launched several billion dollars directly into the owners’ bank accounts.
Cuban was correct about one thing: The NFL absolutely became more aggressive.
It added more standalone games, expanded its streaming footprint, signed media agreements worth more than $100 billion and treated every available holiday like a vacant piece of television real estate. Fans responded to this horrifying corporate greed by watching even more football.
People complained about needing Peacock. Then they downloaded Peacock.
They complained about games on Amazon. Then 20 million of them watched games on Amazon.
They complained about football taking over Christmas. Then they ignores their families and watched that too. The hog was never slaughtered. It received a streaming deal.
Cuban has also clearly rediscovered the appeal of sports ownership. He sold his majority interest in the Mavericks in 2023 at a $3.5 billion valuation but retained a 27% stake. Harbinger also recently purchased an Athletics stake and is pursuing additional investments.
Buying into the Cowboys would be a very different financial universe.
Even a tiny percentage of a $13 billion team costs the type of money that makes normal calculators display an error message. It would also place two of the loudest, most hands-on sports owners of the modern era inside the same organizations.
Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban sharing a football team sounds less like an ownership group and more like a reality show CBS would air directly after Survivor.
Cuban’s original prediction was not entirely wrong in spirit. The NFL is greddy, aggressive and determined to squeeze money from every available screen.
He just underestimated how much everyone loves the product.
Now the man who predicted the league’s collapse may need to write a massive check for a tiny piece of the wreckage.
Tough day for the take. Tremendous day for the portfolio.