Sports is how you know Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Oil brought him into play

If sport is how most people know Jerry Jones, it was oil and gas that brought him into play.

His first big break came in 1982 when his oil and gas company, Arkoma Production Co., bought land with natural gas reserves for $15 million and then, just four years later, sold the company for $175 million.

Years later, in 2018, Jones entered a major shale game, investing $75 million for a 14% stake in Frisco oil and gas explorer Comstock Resources Inc. The following month, he took a majority stake in the company. Jones’ investment in the company rose to $1.1 billion in 2019.

His stake in Comstock is now worth $1.23 billion, based on Friday’s closing price of $8.89 a share.

Jones and his family are also not averse to investing in emerging ventures such as diagnostic imaging, youth sports and payment technology. Here are a few that have made headlines in recent years:

• Blue Star Imaging launched in 2005, giving Cowboy players easy access to MRIs and CT scans. The diagnostic imaging company serves both the players and the public. Players and the general public can also get ultrasounds, X-rays, an estimate of the risk of coronary artery disease and a bone density scan.
• Jones was one of the investors in Blue Star Sports, a Frisco-based company that sells technical services to youth sports teams. The company said it has raised more than $200 million from private equity firms, Jones’ family and the NFL’s investment arm, 32 Equity. In 2018 the company was rebranded as: Stack of sports with Jones still listed as an investor. At the time, the Plano-based company said it processes $2 billion in registration payments annually.
• In 2016, Jones launched a Frisco-based private investment firm Blue Star Innovation Partners to invest in companies in the technology, healthcare, sports, health, wellness and artificial intelligence sectors. It partners with ticketing platform SeatGeek, payment technology company Payrix and tech ecosystem for nonprofits Neon One, among others.
• In 2017, the Jones family and fellow investor John Goff got into esports and bought a majority stake in Complexity Gaming. In June, Complexity’s parent company, NextGen Tech LLC, was acquired by GameSquare Esports Inc. The combined company is valued at approximately $33 million and is expected to generate $29 million in revenue this year. As part of the deal, the Jones family, Goff Capital Inc. and Complexity founder and CEO Jason Lake, now 47% of GameSquare. The company also agreed to a multi-year esports and gaming partnership with the Cowboys. The Complexity team trains in an 11,000-square-foot esports facility in The Star that opened in 2019 as the GameStop Performance Center.