Cowboys, Chiefs owners work together to land Cup matches

Making a bid to become a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup fosters competition between cities — that would include places where NFL teams reside.

When it comes to the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs, the cities they play in both won bids to host World Cup matches on Thursday.

For the two franchises it wasn’t about competition, it was about coming together.

Dan Hunt, the chairman and president of FC Dallas, is also Dallas’ host city bid lead. Hunt’s brother, Clark, is the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Hunt family in Kansas City led the charge to that winning bid.

Dan Hunt worked with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and the Dallas Sports Commission to help secure Dallas’ successful bid.

“It is like doing business with family. It’s incredibly special,” Dan Hunt said.“Jerry went to my father (the late Lamar Hunt) as a 25-year-old to figure out how to buy a NFL franchise. We’ve had this longstanding relationship.”

The Jones and Hunt families live in close proximity in Dallas. Over the years, the two families worked together on NFL business, Clark and Stephen Jones served on some league committees, and there are soccer events Dan Hunt formed with Jerry Jones.

“I can’t tell you the respect that I have for the Hunts,”Jerry Jones said. “Clark, Dan, his family. Lamar was just such an inspiration and actually such a help to me when I got involved (in the NFL). He’s a help to me now. Some of the things that he’s about are still the tenets that I would use when I’m thinking about how to handle a problem today. A great family of the NFL .”