In 2002, the Dallas Cowboys Football Club hired Allyn Media to provide assistance on multiple fronts. But the part that we believe is applicable to this challenge is our work in helping win the election in the City of Arlington, Texas, to split construction costs 50/50 with the owner and general manager Jerry Jones, funded by a half-cent sales tax increase, and new fees on hotels, motels and rental cars. With that agreement, the Arlington City Council put the issue on the ballot to let voters decide the team’s fate.
Our initial polling was upside-down. The initiative would lose and lose big. A deeper dive in research showed us that more than half of likely voters were flat-out against giving a billionaire $325 million to build a new football stadium that would host eight games a year and sit empty the rest of the time. They were apprehensive about the impact it would have on the City, the neighborhood that would be destroyed to make way for such a large construction project, the possible use of imminent domain, and the environmental impact, disappearing trees and grassland, and the addition of so much concrete. Cross tabulation analysis told us we needed to keep all the men we could and win over women.
We developed a two-pronged message with a direct mail campaign and heavy TV. One track designed to shore up the support of male voters, and one track designed to win female voters. We identified key female community leaders, reached out to them and made our case and then created direct mail and TV ads that allowed these women to carry the message to female voters. One of these women was known as Ms. Persis, a woman many women in Arlington had grown up with as their dance instructor. They trusted her. In her video, we scripted her, “I don’t know a first down from a touchdown, but I do know that the new stadium will mean money for new roads and schools and clean up an area of town that needs it.” This message, and more like it, turned the tide for female voters. After months of intense campaigning, we overcame fierce opposition and the Dallas Cowboys stadium referendum passed by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent, the largest margin of victory for any professional football stadium at the time.
