Reaction to P. Diddys recent tweets expressing his interest in purchasing the Carolina Panthers is picking up steam on social media and in barber shops across the country. The process to owning an NFL franchise is probably the most meticulous and difficult to navigate of all the pro sports. The fact that Diddy’s ownership ambition is the longest of long shots to begin with makes Colin Kaepernick‘s latest Tweets concerning NFL ownership a bit confusing.
Colin Kaepernick on Twitter
I want in on the ownership group! Let’s make it happen! https://t.co/sDR4ciciY8
Any prospective team owner has to get approved by the other owners even if he has the monetary means to acquire a team. In light of Kaepernick’s eventful two years as the face of NFL protests and the fact that owners colluded and transpired to keep him from getting a QB job, why in the world would anyone believe they will let him be part of the first African-American ownership team?
The owners and a percentage of football consumers’ disdain for Kaepernick hasn’t subsided, and if Kaep was to join any ownership group, the task would be lost in a media circus, which President Trump would surely contribute to.
Robert Littal on Twitter
MAGA Racists Respond in Mass to Colin Kaepernick Tweeting He Wants to Own Panthers With Diddy https://t.co/bvBavTpr2r
To most people of color, the idea is incredible. It’s a strong union between the face of Black Civil Rights and the face of Black Success in 2018. As Diddy stated, the time is right for the NFL to produce its first African-American majority owner. The world is changing and these last bastions of bloodsport capitalism, oppression and racial injustice have to begin to allow some diversity at the winners table.
They have to share some of these resources they have hoarded for so long.
The Hip-Hop community, which is as rich and diverse as any, is all for it. They have seen Diddys rise as a dancer and promoter to super hit producer, artist, culture-shaper, tastemaker and record label mogul, having started one of the most successful record companies in music history with a dollar and a dream.
Diddy honed his business savvy and social skills at Howard University and connected with his love of music and money and his knack for doing it big and took off like a rocket on a celebrity ship that has never landed.
It would be some true poetic justice if Kaepernick was in some way part of the first African-American power team to purchase an NFL franchise, but even if this was the play, the cards came out too soon. Have Diddy and Kap discussed this in private? Or was this Kaepernick telling Diddy, Dont forget about me and all Ive sacrificed.
Because if Diddy does manage to get himself an NFL franchise, he would owe a large part of that accomplishment to Kaepernick, who sacrificed his own career to instigate and spark all of these conversations on equality, oppression and social injustice. It would be the catalyst that put things in motion for public sentiment to shift and for the owners to become more willing to allow an African-American owner into the ole boys network.
If this is a serious attempt by Diddy to purchase the Panthers, he has to be silent and deadly and do it unattached from any political baggage, with all due respect to all of the people inspired and excited by his desires and the historical significance it carries.
