For years, the Dallas Cowboys have spectacularly failed to live up to their own expectations of winning the Super Bowl. Is it because fans are touring the training center day after day and disturbing the players? One report suggests so.

If you book a tour of the campus “The Star” and the AT&T Stadium with the Dallas Cowboys, you can experience something really special.

That’s because participants get very close to some of the Cowboys’ players. The tours pass the rooms where the team meets, where players lift weights or eat their meals.

And the tours are anything but rare. Up to seven groups of 20 to 30 people are taken through the Cowboys’ inner sanctum every day. According to the franchise, it takes in almost $10 million a year from various tours.

All NFL teams run similar tours. But “America’s Team” is the only one that takes participants directly past the players as they prepare for upcoming games.

Dalton Schultz felt “like he was at the zoo”

According to an ESPN report, this goes so far that people look through glass windows while the Cowboys players are in meetings, that fans knock on windows while the players are training in the gym or Dak Prescott has to fight his way through a crowd while walking through the training rooms.

According to the report, the tours are intended to disrupt the players’ preparation for the games. Perhaps even to such an extent that they are one reason why the Cowboys repeatedly fail spectacularly to meet their own objectives. As is well known, the Texas team has been waiting for a Super Bowl triumph since 1995.

Former tight end Dalton Schultz recently told Pat McAfee that he sometimes felt “like he was in a zoo.” Jayron Kearse, who played in Dallas from 2021 to 2023, has similar impressions.

Ex-player misses privacy

“You’re walking to lunch and you run into guides,” the safety explained, “You’re walking to meetings and you run into guides. We’re here for football, it’s our job to come here and focus, whether we’re in the weight room or our coach is telling us something in the meeting room. Then 35 people walk by and look through the window.”

It’s like Dalton said, Kearse continued: “It’s like you’re at the zoo and the kids want to see a lion.” Another ex-player, who did not want to be named, assessed the situation similarly. “You’re sitting in the hot tub or in the ice bath and people are pointing at you. There should be privacy on the training ground,” said the player.

Jerry Jones wants to bring fans closer

The tours through the heart of the Cowboys franchise are part of the philosophy of owner Jerry Jones, who wants to get as close to the fans as possible and put on a show. “I’ve always believed that the best way for us to promote the Cowboys and get fans interested in our work is to involve them in everything we do,” explained the 82-year-old.

For the eccentric billionaire, it is not an issue that the tours disturb the players and that their athletic performance could suffer. Jones made it clear that never once had a player or employee complained to him about the tours: “Not even once. But it wouldn’t make any difference either. Full stop.”

In order to finally end the Super Bowl drought that has lasted since 1995, it doesn’t seem to be the best idea to let hundreds of fans through the training center day after day.