The NFL kicked off the 2010 season last night with a matchup between the Super Bowl-winning New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings. The Saints won by a score of 14 to 9. As the NFL embarks the new season, some things remain the same in the most popular sport in America.
Close to 70 percent of NFL players are black, but there are only six black coaches and no black majority owners in a league with 32 teams. Besides tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams’ small ownership stake in the Miami Dolphins, blacks are powerless when it comes to ownership in the NFL.
In 2005, Reggie Fowler almost became the first black majority owner of an NFL team when it was reported that he purchased the Minnesota Vikings for $625 million. However, it didn’t take long for Fowler to discover that it takes more than cash to get into the lily-white club of NFL owners. In order to purchase an NFL franchise, the buyer must put down 40 percent of the cost, prove to have enough money to buy out the other investors in case they back out, and the potential owner must be voted in by 24 of the 32 other NFL owners.
But Fowler created a backlash when he refused to allow several NFL owners to review his finances because he viewed them as business competitors. The majority of the NFL owners soon turned against Fowler and it became apparent that they would not vote him in as an owner.
Since Fowler’s failed attempt, the realization of a black NFL owner has once again become bleak. So as you watch your favorite black football players run, tackle and catch with the hopes of winning a Super Bowl, keep in my mind that chances are while they may win a championship, they will probably never have control in the front office. –amir shaw
