Last week, it was reported that Jay-Z was going to become part owner of an NFL team as part of his current deal with the league.
According to multiple people connected to NFL ownership and the league office, there are no plans in place for Jay-Z to become a team owner.
via CBS Sports:
The [ownership rumor] report was connected to the deal Carter’s Roc Nation has to become the “live music entertainment strategist” for the NFL’s major events. There was already enough to unpack in that. How will Roc Nation impact social justice campaigns with the NFL? How will this affect artists unwilling to work with the NFL in the aftermath of Colin Kaepernick’s exit from the league? When and how will money be spent? How different will the Super Bowl halftime show look under Jay-Z’s leadership?
And unfortunately, the timing of the report, amid an already-charged atmosphere, has further complicated a murky situation which will take time to play out. Sources said it had people directly tied to the deal — within the Roc Nation team and within the NFL offices — scurrying to try to figure out who put the flawed info out there.
Was it leaked by someone with a particular agenda? Was it meant to obscure or conflate the actual intent of this arrangement?
Regardless, the deal does not include any ownership stake or parameters of a potential one. That’s not to say that Jay-Z will not at some point get a piece of a team through his work with the league and its owners, but this is nothing like the situation between him and the Brooklyn Nets, where he paid the most nominal of fees to get a portion of the team while he campaigned for their move to that borough and served a particularly public function as the face of the franchise. Carter would have to be fully vetted and approved by membership, and he would have to divest himself of his growing athlete representation empire as well.
“Those kinds of deals don’t exist in the NFL,” as one super-plugged in ownership-level source put it. “There is no ownership component to this arrangement.”
While the focus in terms of NFL diversity is generally on the coaching ranks, and to some degree, the general manager ranks, the lack of people of color in ownership is just as pressing. Seeing a group of controlling partners and limited partners who more closely resemble the demographics of NFL locker rooms is something all parties should embrace. But in this case, with this rapper, if it does happen it is quite a ways off, at the very least.
Yikes! It sounds like someone planted the Jay-Z/ownership story to calm some of the negative press surrounding his stake in the deal and now the NFL is pushing back.
