In 2017, something unusual happened in the boardrooms of the NFL. Some of the league’s most powerful owners started writing big cheques, not for stadiums or players, but for professional video game teams. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke all bought into esports within a matter of months. Nearly a decade later, the results are a mix of bold ideas, real innovation and some hard lessons. If you want to follow the esports teams and leagues that football money helped build, outlets such as eSport Now track results, rosters and tournaments across every major game.
Why Did NFL Owners Invest in Esports?
The short answer: they were chasing the next generation of fans. By the mid-2010s, esports was drawing millions of young viewers on Twitch and YouTube, an audience that traditional sports were struggling to reach through television. For owners used to building franchises, esports looked like the early NFL: a young industry with huge growth potential and plenty of room for experienced operators.
The timing mattered, too. In 2017, Activision Blizzard launched the Overwatch League, the first major esports league built on the American franchise model. Instead of teams qualifying and being relegated, owners bought permanent slots tied to cities, just as in the NFL, NBA or NHL. For sports owners, it was a familiar format.
Robert Kraft moved first. As the Patriots’ own website reported at the time, Kraft became the first NFL owner to join the new league, securing the Boston franchise. Kraft explained that his group had studied esports for years and had been “waiting for the right opportunity to enter.” Franchise slots were widely reported to cost around $20 million each.
Jerry Jones and Complexity: Football Thinking Meets Gaming
The most ambitious NFL-backed project came from Texas. In November 2017, Jerry Jones and real estate investor John Goff bought a majority stake in Complexity Gaming, one of North America’s oldest esports organisations, founded in 2003 by Jason Lake.
Jones did what football owners know best: he invested in infrastructure and brand. Complexity moved to Frisco, and in 2019 it opened a dedicated headquarters and training facility inside The Star, the Dallas Cowboys’ world headquarters. Players had a professional environment similar to NFL athletes: practice rooms, performance staff, content studios and a shared home with one of the most valuable sports brands in the world. Complexity even added the Cowboys’ star to its logo.
The project grew. In 2021, Complexity was acquired in an all-stock deal by the Canadian company GameSquare, valued at around $27 million. The Jones and Goff families became major shareholders of the combined group, and GameSquare signed a gaming partnership with the Cowboys.
Kraft and Kroenke: Building City-Based Esports Franchises
While Jones built an organisation, Kraft and Kroenke focused on franchised leagues.
Kraft’s Boston Uprising joined the Overwatch League’s first season in 2018 and finished third in the regular season. The Kraft Group later explored other Activision competitions, including the Call of Duty League.
Stan Kroenke, owner of the Rams and Arsenal, bought the second Los Angeles Overwatch slot through his company Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. The Los Angeles Gladiators built a loyal fan base in Southern California, and Kroenke later added the Los Angeles Guerrillas in the Call of Duty League, under the umbrella brand The Guard.
What NFL Owners Brought to Esports
NFL investors brought several things esports organisations badly needed:
- Professional facilities. Training centres, performance staff and proper workspaces made players’ lives more stable and professional.
- Sponsorship relationships. Owners could connect esports teams with established brands that already sponsored their football franchises.
- Fan engagement expertise. NFL teams know how to build local identity, run game-day events and sell merchandise.
- Credibility. When the owner of the Cowboys or the Patriots invested, it signalled to the wider business world that esports was worth taking seriously.
How Did the Investments Play Out?
The honest answer: mixed. The franchise model that felt so familiar to NFL owners turned out to be harder to sustain in esports. Revenue from media rights, ticketing and sponsorship did not grow as fast as expected, and the costs of running teams remained high.
The Overwatch League ended after its 2023 season and was replaced by a new competition format. Before that, Kraft’s Boston Uprising had merged with Oxygen Esports in 2021, and in early 2023 Kroenke’s The Guard laid off most of its staff.
Complexity’s story ended in 2026. After the GameSquare deal, the Jones and Goff families held their interest through the parent company, and in 2024 GameSquare sold Complexity back to a group led by founder Jason Lake. As Inven Global reported, Lake confirmed in September 2026 that Complexity had shut down after 23 years, with the brand returning to GameSquare.
Lessons for Football and Esports
These stories are not simply failures. NFL owners helped professionalise esports at a crucial moment. They showed that players need proper support, that teams benefit from strong brands, and that local identity can work in gaming. Many of those ideas, from performance staff to content teams, are now standard across the industry.
The experience also taught sports owners important lessons. Esports does not always follow the rules of traditional sport. Game publishers control their competitions, popular titles rise and fall, and fan loyalty often follows individual players and streamers more than city-based teams.
Which NFL owner owned an esports team? Several did. Jerry Jones co-owned Complexity Gaming, Robert Kraft owned the Boston Uprising, and Stan Kroenke owned the Los Angeles Gladiators and Los Angeles Guerrillas.
Why did NFL owners invest in esports? To reach younger audiences and get into a fast-growing industry that used a familiar franchise model.
Does Complexity still exist? Complexity ceased operations in September 2026, and its brand returned to GameSquare.
When NFL owners bought into esports, they brought money, facilities and big ambitions to a young industry. Not every bet paid off, but their influence is still visible in how professional esports teams operate today. For fans of both worlds, the story is a reminder that building a new sport is never simple, even for the most powerful owners in American football.