Jerry Jones plans to be in his suite at AT&T Stadium on Tuesday for the semifinal between France and Spain, his first World Cup game at the venue after missing the earlier matches there. For a man who owns the building and built it to host the biggest occasions, the timing makes the visit notable in its own right.
The stadium hosted a tournament-high nine World Cup games, and Jones and his family have been using a suite for the event. The Cowboys put another $350 million into the stadium for the tournament, adding to the original $1.2 billion price tag for the building Jones designed and opened in 2009.
That is part of why Jones’s absence before Tuesday stood out. He was not there in person for record-setting performances by Lionel Messi, for Japan’s fans leaving sections spotless after picking up after themselves, or for Cristiano Ronaldo’s final World Cup game. The owner has a reputation as a big event guy, and Chad Estis said he loves events as much as anyone he knows and wanted to make sure the stadium was operating well.
There was also the practical side of the tournament itself. FIFA renamed the venue Dallas Stadium and put up curtains on the huge sliding glass doors on the west end for the one game where the setting sun could have shined through. That kind of adjustment is part of what it takes to turn a football palace into a World Cup site, even one that has already hosted a Super Bowl and NCAA championship games in football and men’s basketball in barely more than five years.
The unanswered part is not whether Jones cares about the moment. It is whether the Tuesday semifinal finally puts him in the building while the tournament is still there. If he arrives as planned, it will be the clearest sign yet that the World Cup has reached the stage Jones seemed to save his first appearance for.
