Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson at City Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022, in Dallas.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says he’s creating a new council committee to come up with ways to bring more pro sports franchises and events to the city and he’s appointing himself the head of it.
Johnson on Tuesday announced the new five-member Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Recruitment and Retention in a city memo to fellow elected leaders. He noted that several teams bear the city’s name but are based in other areas around the metroplex and that the group is meant to help Dallas be more competitive in drawing more sports business.
“Dallas is the best sports city in the country right now,” Johnson said in a statement. “But for too long, Dallas has been too passive when it comes to attracting and retaining professional sports franchises.”
The creation of the council committee comes on the heels of the mayor’s tweeting on May 5 that he felt Dallas needed an NFL expansion team based in the city. He cited the metro area’s growth is on par with the number of people in and around Chicago and suggested North Texas could sustain two football teams better than Los Angeles and New York. Each has two football teams bearing its names.
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