North Texas Daily

Clay Massey | @Clay_FC

The university’s partnership with the Dallas Cowboys is a deal UNT President Neal Smatresk hopes will drive greater brand recognition of UNT to a national audience.

This also gives UNT students potential opportunities to land internships with the Cowboys, the most valuable sports franchise in the world according to Forbes.

UNT will be the only university advertising at Cowboys games, according to a news release. The partnership became official in early August. UNT’s marketing messages will be visible inside AT&T Stadium for the upcoming Cowboys season as well as the Star in Frisco.

After regent Brint Ryan broke the ice with mutual connections between the university and the Cowboys, negotiations were ready to move forward.

“We had an exploratory conversation,” Smatresk said. “It evolved from there into plans for a very significant partnership.”

The Star in Frisco, the Cowboys’ new world headquarters, is located directly across from the UNT New College. The proximity made the partnership viable.

“It will give us very high-profile coverage,” Smatresk said. “We believe we’ll have broad exposure not just in this region, which is our primary region for student recruitment, but national exposure, that we would probably have difficulty emulating by going out into traditional media markets.”

Smatresk wants to get Cowboys officials into the classroom. The classroom and internship facet was one of the biggest selling points for Smatresk.

“Just the sponsorship part wouldn’t have been enough to turn my head,” Smatresk said. “It was being able to weave in one of the hottest sports businesses in the country to our educational program. I basically told them if we weren’t going to do that, I wasn’t interested in the relationship. They agreed.”