FORT WORTH, Texas — The NFL has a racism problem that Rooney rules, regulations and Super Bowl halftime shows with Black rappers can’t root out.
The latest novel idea to fight inherent and systemic racism in its hiring practices is for the NFL to find a Black owner.
Seven out of 10 players in the league are Black. Just three of 32 coaches are Black or bi-racial. There has never been a Black owner in the NFL.
With the Denver Broncos up for sale, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said during the Super Bowl last week that the league would ”love to see a diverse owner’‘ to buy that franchise.
He has met with media executive Byron Allen and other Black prospective NFL owners.
According to the New York Post, the NFL is lobbying Robert F. Smith, the nation’s richest Black man and a Denver native who lives in Austin, to buy the Broncos.
Coming on the heels of the lawsuit by former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores against three NFL teams alleging racial discrimination in the hiring practices of coaches and citing the lack of Black owners, this issue is now being presented as the solve.
A solution outlined in the Flores lawsuit would be to “ensure diversity of ownership by creating and funding a committee dedicated to sourcing Black investors to take majority ownership stakes in NFL Teams.”
The thought process is that Black coaches will continue to get left out and left behind until there is proper representation at the ownership level.
What is this?
Separate but equal 2.0?
Black ownership is a barrier that needs to be broken, and when it happens it will be a huge sign of progress ...
... but it is not the answer to the systemic racism that exists when it comes to the NFL’s hiring practices.
Black owners hiring Black coaches and white owners hiring white coaches is not the answer. That is neither progress nor advancement.
And it’s certainly not going to make a change in the numbers of Black coaches getting real opportunities at head coaching jobs.
Again, busting through the glass ceiling of ownership needs to happen. But it will take more than one Black owner to truly make a difference in how the NFL does business.
Getting one Black owner will be tough enough. Getting multiple Black owners is a pipe dream. The average valuation for one of NFL’s 32 franchises is $3.5 billion. The Broncos price tag is expected to exceed $4 billion.
According to Forbes, there are only seven Black billionaires in the United States.
This brings us back to the original problem. White owners will have to find it in their heart and minds to want to hire the best and brightest for the position regardless of race.
And white coaches have to be willing to fuel the pipeline with qualified Black coaches by allowing them coveted coordinator opportunities.
Of course, that didn’t make a difference for Eric Bieniemy or Byron Leftwich, who won Super Bowl titles as the offensive coordinators for the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Both have been left wanting only to see new-crowned Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams coordinator Kevin O’Connell, who is white, get named head coach of the Minnesota Vikings before winning the game.
Flores’ lawsuit is a good start. It’s a sign that Black coaches are tired, frustrated and fed up.
That the NFL has hired a Black woman, former United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to defend it against racism tells you it can find a qualified Black candidate when necessary.
And as long as the scores of Black players continue to show up and perform on the field while coaches are shut out of the process the league really doesn’t have to change its ways.
This is no longer about taking a knee cause the league “is past kneeling,” as Jay-Z once so eloquently stated.
Black ownership is a start but for real change to happen, for real progress to occur, it’s going to take the prominent players to get involved by boycotting or refusing to render their services.
