'There are 48 of those seats, terraced in three rows, in the suite controlled by Jones...'

I'm watching the Cowboys tonight, not the freakin' Democrat-communist debate.

At the New York Times, "Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones Wows Those Gathered at ‘the Fifty’":

Ima watch @NFL football tonight. Screw the @TheDemocrats' debate, freakin' commies.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 19, 2015

ARLINGTON, Tex. — The offer to watch the Dallas Cowboys play from the owner Jerry Jones’s suite is extended during the summer, but the formal invitation is not sent until a week before the game.

The package arrives by overnight mail for out-of-town guests — it is hand-delivered by team security personnel to those in the area — and contains a box holding an acrylic tray with the Cowboys star logo etched in the middle. Nestled inside the tray is a card requesting that the recipients join the Jones family “on the fifty” (as in yard line), along with tickets, a parking map and a parking pass.

All visitors receive valet privileges, but only some are afforded the luxury of driving beneath AT&T Stadium, to the base of an elevator that lifts them directly into the suite.

“It’s the most valuable thing we have,” said Jones’s daughter, Charlotte Jones Anderson, an executive vice president of the team. “Even better than the seat.”

There are 48 of those seats, terraced in three rows, and one of Anderson’s unofficial duties is teaming with her mother, Gene Jones, to determine how each is filled — who, exactly, is granted entry into one of the most exclusive spaces in the sporting realm.

Los Angeles does not have a football team, so on Cowboys game days, Hollywood comes to AT&T Stadium.

As the irrepressible owner (and general manager) of the N.F.L.’s richest team, Jones wields considerable power on league matters, though he offers only occasional input on the composition of his own suite. His wife and daughter strive for a convivial atmosphere and a diverse crowd filled with business associates, arts patrons, political figures, celebrities, friends and family members.

For Saturday’s game against the Jets, they are expecting a crowd of about 62, with the overflow content to mingle by high-top tables and chairs and watch the game on television. As she sauntered through the seats Thursday afternoon, more than 48 hours before kickoff, Anderson peeked at the names stenciled on the place cards at each spot.

There, in the front row, the chancellor of the University of Texas system, William McRaven. Some seats down, the chief executive of MillerCoors, Gavin Hattersley. Behind McRaven, the former mayor of Arlington, Robert Cluck, a treasured friend of the family. As a city councilman, he told Jones that he was going to run for mayor of Arlington, and when he won, that he wanted Jones to build a stadium there.

It was only the first iteration of the seating chart, Gene Jones cautioned, and for every game, that task concerns and vexes her like no other. As if hosting a dinner party, she sketches out a schematic in pencil, always mindful of guests’ interests and personalities, and then solicits thoughts from her daughter up until their guests arrive.

“People get moved,” Gene Jones said.

“There’s a little massaging,” Anderson said.

“It’s a nightmare,” Gene Jones said.

There are always last-minute cancellations and accommodations and additions, like the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who informed his friend, the injured quarterback Tony Romo, that he would like to attend Saturday’s game. Romo called Anderson and, she said, told her, “I would put him in my suite, but I feel like he deserves to be in yours.”

Kimmel explained that he just wanted to come, that he did not even need a seat. Nonsense, Anderson said. Kimmel is sitting right beside her, in the front row...

Jimmy's really cool. I'd pull the stops out for him too.

Continue reading.