Like any responsible entity, when times got tough for the Dallas Cowboys, they turned to the state lottery.
The officially licensed scratch-off tickets bearing the team's logo represent a shift in revenue streams for the league, and judging by initial sales, they won't be going anywhere. Traditionally, football teams made their money through two main advertising sources: beer companies and car manufacturers.
However, those to usually rock-steady sources of revenue dried up to a degree with the recent economic downturn, leading to the disintegration of a longstanding ban on such potential cash cows within the NFL.
According to a report by Jeff Mosier in the Dallas Morning News, the tickets, which are sold at convenience stores across the state for $5 a piece, may generate as much as $14.45 million for the state's Foundation School Fund, and bring in close to $4 million for the team itself.
The mitigating circumstances that in great part led to the ban on such name-use has been seen in many aspects of the team's season thus far, the largest of which being that it has hitherto been unable to find a corporate sponsor willing to purchase naming rights to Cowboys Stadium, arguably the most noteworthy stadium in the world, and certainly in the NFL.
