The NFL is at least dedicated to making it appear as if the league is making progressive steps in helping the Black community.
They have partnered with Ice Cube and his organization to help close the wealth gap between Black and white communities, an issue Ice Cube has been very vocal about ever since Donald Trump was president.
The NFL is collaborating with Contract with Black America Institute, an initiative founded by Global Icon Ice Cube, started up with the mission of assisting Black communities with their financial statuses and helping them as a whole to increase their wealth in order to shorten the resource disparity between black and white communities.
Ice Cube is adamant that helping the Black community shorten the distance is how you form a better economy and help solve a lot of social injustice problems that are taking place in our community.
He spoke with members from the “AP Pro Football” podcast, when explaining this initiative and the newly formed partnership with the NFL.
“We feel like if you tackle the huge wealth gap between Black people and white people in this country, that should solve a lot of problems that’s there,” Ice Cube said on the “AP Pro Football” podcast. “Our thing was to go after some of the biggest companies in the country that rely on Black consumers or Black workers, and the biggest one that we focused in on was the NFL.”
The idea is centered around the NFL and CWBA teaming up to increase economic equity and partnerships with black-owned businesses. The NFL is going to contribute by helping recognize league wide opportunities with technology, financial, and production aspects of the NFL, allowing more black-owned businesses to take a hand in those field industries to make money and create revenue within their communities and businesses.
This is much more inclusive and grass-roots orientated than Jay-Z’s mysterious “Entertainment & Social Justice” deal he brokered with the NFL as a way of “moving on” from Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling.
They are also focusing on a direct and indirect approach to spending on national black businesses.
This has been years in the making, because Ice Cube started this organization back in 2020, with his longtime business partner and entertainment lawyer Jeff Kwatinetz.
Along with Kwatinetz, there are advisors Ja’Ron Smith, and Chris Pilkerton. They worked with Troy Vincent, who is the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. They teamed up to pitch their idea to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
“It was cool connecting with somebody like Troy Vincent and really delivering our plan,” Ice Cube said. “Roger Goodell jumped in with both feet saying, ‘Hey, we got to get this done. We have to make this happen.'”
According to ESPN, the NFL has already spent $125 million on Black-owned businesses such as Ariel Investments, City First/Broadway Bank, Cover Communications and Fearless Technology during the past year.
“Our partnership with CWBA is another reminder that partnering with intentional organizations is critical to everything we do at the league,” Goodell said in a statement. “Black businesses play a major role in our country’s economic prosperity. We understand these businesses have not always had the opportunity for exponential growth, so we are pleased to have partners like Ice Cube and his organization, CWBA, in a continued, collective push toward greater economic inclusion.”
This is a monumental step forward for America, and an ingenious move by Ice Cube to affiliate with one of the most loved and supported American brands to help uplift the black community through realistic methods.
According to Ice Cube, this is only the beginning. The rapper/actor/Big3 Founder has plans to expand to other huge companies and organizations that he can apply his methods to a wide audience.
“I’m glad the NFL stepped up,” he said. “They’re the biggest and most powerful and most influential to other Fortune 500 companies. So we want to get them to lead the charge. They’ve already allocated and spent up to $125 million. So we want that to turn into $500 million, maybe a billion and then move on to other leagues and hopefully other companies like Nike and the big boys and tell them to try to adopt the same thing.”
This is an amazing move by Ice Cube, who has done nothing but grow his influence in the sports world. When things don’t fall exactly his way, he comes up with another plan of action and stays the course.
His journey only becomes exponentially better when he is using his resources and influence to help uplift the Black community.
