Governor's Cup (Texas)

Preseason game between the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on August 24, 2019

The two cities of Houston and Dallas have a rivalry that goes way back before the team's founding. Both became the two largest cities in Texas, with Dallas being known for having wealthy elites of the Texas oil and gas industry in the early 20th century, while Houston was known for being a working-class city with the lower-tier workers working in making oil pipelines during the Texas boom.

In 1960, the NFL established the Dallas Cowboys, mainly as an effort to cut off the American Football League (AFL)'s Dallas Texans. (The cutoff effort was only a partial success, as the Texans were forced to move to become the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963, but the AFL itself would thrive and eventually merge into the NFL in 1970.) The AFL would be the first league to place a professional team in Houston, and though the Houston Oilers and the Texans were in opposite divisions, they quickly became rivals. Their rivalry culminated in a double-overtime 1962 American Football League Championship Game that the Texans, in their last game in that identity, won, preventing an Oilers threepeat.

In 1965, the AFL's Houston Oilers and NFL's Dallas Cowboys both drafted Oklahoma tackle Ralph Neely. The Oilers sued the Cowboys over Neely's services. In the settlement of the case, the Oilers received three Cowboys draft picks in addition to a cash settlement. The Cowboys also agreed to play five preseason games, three in Houston, against the Oilers. Thus began the Governor's Cup series, a Texas tradition created by franchise free agency.[3]

In 1992 the Cowboys and Oilers met twice in the preseason. The first game took place in Tokyo as part of the NFL's American Bowl series, and the second meeting in Dallas for the Governor's Cup.

The 1994 Governor's Cup was not actually played in Texas but in Mexico City at Estadio Azteca as part of the American Bowl series. As a result of Estadio Azteca's unusually large seating capacity, a league record 112,246 fans watched the Oilers shut out the Cowboys, 6–0 on August 13, 1994.[4]

From 1997 to 2001 there were no Governor's Cup games played. This was because the Oilers moved to Tennessee after the 1996 season and the Texans did not enter the NFL as an expansion team until 2002, leaving the Cowboys as the lone team in Texas for five straight seasons.

The only other professional football league to feature teams from Dallas and Houston at the same time is the 2020 incarnation of the XFL, which established the Dallas Renegades and Houston Roughnecks.

Up to the 1996 season, the Dallas Cowboys had won 18 of 31 Governor's Cup meetings leaving the Houston Oilers with 13 Governor's Cup wins.[5]

The Texans joined the NFL as an expansion team for the 2002 season. Since then, the Texans lead in the series overall at 8–7 as of the start of the 2018 season. The Texans lead the pre-season series at 6–5 and the Dallas Cowboys lead the regular season series 3–2.