The term "America’s Team" is a nickname that refers to the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL)'s
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...
. The nickname originated with the team's 1978 highlight film, where the narrator (
John Facenda
John Thomas Ralph Augustine James Facenda ( ; August 8, 1913September 26, 1984) was an American broadcaster and sports announcer. He was a fixture on Philadelphia radio and television for decades, and achieved national fame as a narrator for N ...
) opens with the following introduction: The term is recognized and often used by media outlets, including
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
,
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
,
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
, and ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
''.
History
Bob Ryan, now Vice President and editor-in-chief of
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentaries for and about the NFL, as well as ot ...
, coined this for the Cowboys while preparing and editing the team's 1978 season highlight film. He was quoted as saying:
Ryan told the
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NFL ...
for their Top Ten Nicknames show:
During the Cowboys' first game of the 1979 season, a nationally televised game against the
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...
(Dallas won 22–21), the television announcer Pat Summerall for CBS introduced the Cowboys as America's Team and the name stuck.
Dallas's Hall of Fame coach
Tom Landry
Thomas Wade Landry (September 11, 1924 – February 12, 2000) was an American professional football player and coach. He was the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL), a position he held for 29 seasons. Dur ...
originally did not approve of the appellation of America's Team. He felt that it would give opposing teams extra incentive to play harder. Eventually he gave in and actually came to like the name. The nickname was coined at the height of Landry's NFL-record 20 consecutive winning season streak, during which Dallas appeared in 12 conference championship games (counting the 1966 and 1967 league championships) and five Super Bowls, and was exemplified on the field by the iconic Hall of Fame quarterback
Roger Staubach
Roger Thomas Staubach (, -; , -; born February 5, 1942), nicknamed "Roger the Dodger", "Captain America", and "Captain Comeback", is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for ...
, but the team's popularity has continued over the decades during periods of both mediocrity and dynastic success.
Records and media
In 2003, NFL Films released a
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
collection chronicling the Dallas Cowboys franchise entitled ''The Dallas Cowboys: The Complete History of America's Team 1960–2003''. In 2008, NFL Films would release an updated DVD of ''The History of the Dallas Cowboys''.
The popularity of the Cowboys as America's Team has been supported by such NFL records as "Team with Most Consecutive Sold Out Games", a streak of 160 home and away games (including playoffs) that began on December 23, 1990, at Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium and came to an end on December 24, 1999, in a Christmas Eve game against the New Orleans Saints in the
Louisiana Superdome
The Caesars Superdome, commonly known as the Superdome (formerly known as Mercedes-Benz Superdome), is a multi-purpose stadium located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the home stadium of the New Orleans Saints ...
. Other examples are the NFL games featuring the Cowboys that result in record-breaking ratings at the time of broadcast, such as 7 of the 8 Super Bowl games featuring the Cowboys and the NFC Championship Game between the Cowboys and 49ers, the only non-Super Bowl NFL game to be ranked in the Top 45 Primetime Telecasts of All Time. Dallas is the only NFL team that distributes its own merchandise, which remains among the league's top selling even during losing seasons. As of 2012 the Cowboys were the most valuable American sports franchise at $2.1 billion. Among the many Cowboys innovations that have contributed to their distinct reputation are their professional, overtly beautiful, all female
cheerleader squad, nicknamed "America's Sweethearts", that has since been copied around the NFL but still stands out as singularly iconic, and has been the subject of multiple movies, has made numerous national television appearances, routinely tours with the USO, makes other appearances around the world, and has been featured in its own long running
reality show
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
on
CMT.
In 2012 an ESPN poll found that the Cowboys are the most popular NFL team, a result consistently echoed in annual Harris polling.
Other uses
Franchises with long successful histories and large nationwide fan bases are occasionally referred to as America's Team.
The
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...
laid claim to the name due to their games
being broadcast on cable television systems nationwide on
TBS from 1977 to 2007, building a fan base in areas of the United States far removed from a Major League Baseball team. A 1982 issue of ''Sports Illustrated'' had referred to the Braves as "America's Team II".
As a jab against the Cowboys before
Super Bowl XXVII
Super Bowl XXVII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Dallas Cowboys to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the ...
,
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...
coach
Marv Levy
Marvin Daniel Levy (; born August 3, 1925) is an American former football coach and executive who was a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for seventeen seasons. He spent most of his head coaching career with the Buffalo Bills, lea ...
proclaimed his team to be America's Team because they would be "wearing red, white, and blue". The Cowboys, whose team colors are navy blue, silver and white, went on to defeat the Bills 52–17.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...
owner
Art Rooney
Arthur Joseph Rooney Sr. (January 27, 1901 – August 25, 1988), often referred to as "The Chief", was the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, an American football franchise in the National Football League (NFL), from 1933 until his death. ...
dismissed the suggestion that the Steelers were "America's Team." " 'We didn't want that,' Rooney said. 'We're
Pittsburgh's team. We feel strongly about that.' "
In a 2009 ESPN.com article titled, "The Great Debate: 'America's Team'," four sports writers stated their case as to why three other teams besides the Cowboys could lay claim to the nickname of America's Team.
*James Walker said the name should be given to the Pittsburgh Steelers since they have the most
Super Bowl wins at six.
*Kevin Seifert said that the
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
could be considered America's Team due to their unique ownership situation. They "are now owned by 112,120
shareholders
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal owner ...
who possess about 4.75 million shares of
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
. A seven-member executive
committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
, elected by the
board of directors
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
and mostly of local residents, operates the team."
*Tim Graham said the
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...
have a right at the name since they dominated the NFL for the entire first
decade
A decade () is a period of ten years. Decades may describe any ten-year period, such as those of a person's life, or refer to specific groupings of calendar years.
Usage
Any period of ten years is a "decade". For example, the statement that "du ...
of the new
millennium
A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...
, by virtue of their team name and colors (red, white and blue) and having been formed in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, the "Cradle of Liberty".
Following their win in
Super Bowl XLIV
Super Bowl XLIV was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champions New Orleans Saints and the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Indianapolis Colts to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...
, a few media writers referred to the
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...
as "America's Team", as their successful bid to win the Super Bowl was seen by many to represent the city's
resurgence after the devastation of
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...
("for one game, the Saints are America's Team").
After several "Cinderella" runs in the
NCAA tournament, the
Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball
The Gonzaga Bulldogs are an intercollegiate men's basketball program representing Gonzaga University. The school competes in the West Coast Conference in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Gonzaga Bulldogs p ...
team has been called "America's Team" as well.
During their
ArenaBowl XXII
ArenaBowl XXII was played on July 27, 2008 at New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana (the host of ArenaBowl XXI). It was the 22nd and final championship game in the history of the Arena Football League, original Arena Football League. This was ...
championship run in 2008,
Philadelphia Soul
Philadelphia soul, sometimes called Philly soul, the Philadelphia sound, Phillysound, or The Sound of Philadelphia TSOP, is a genre of late 1960s–1970s soul music characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often feat ...
owner
Ron Jaworski
Partner owner
, highlights=
* Pro Bowl (1980)
* Bert Bell Award (1980)
* Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame
;NFL record
* Longest touchdown pass: 99 yards (tied)
, statlabel1= TD– INT
, statvalue1=179–164
, statlabel2=Yards
, statvalue2=28,19 ...
referred to the Soul as "America's Team" of the
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...
.
During their 2020 season,
Coastal Carolina
Coastal Carolina University (CCU or Coastal) is a public university in Conway, South Carolina. Founded in 1954 as Coastal Carolina Junior College, and later joining the University of South Carolina System as USC Coastal Carolina, it became an in ...
Head Coach
Jamey Chadwell
Jamey Chadwell (born January 10, 1977) is an American football coach and former player, who serves as the head coach at Liberty University; he also served as head coach for Costal Carolina and interim HC in the 2017 season while permanent head co ...
referred to the Chanticleers as America's team.
References
External links
Dallas Cowboys official web site* (via
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentaries for and about the NFL, as well as ot ...
)
{{Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys
Nicknamed groups of American football players