Jim Trotter, former NFL Network journalist, filed a federal suit against the NFL and NFL Media alleging racial discrimination (Jim Trotter/NABJ) / Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones kisses a trophy, July 29, 2023, in Oxnard, Calif. (APo/Mark J. Terrill)
No Black person has ever held a majority stake in a National Football League team, but Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who is being sued for racial discrimination, insists he wants to increase minority ownership in the NFL.
Days after former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter sued the league for racial discrimination and accused Jones of making racist comments, Jones talked at a press conference about inequity in NFL ownership and how he had found a way to get in.
“Nobody got in on a wing and prayer any more than I did, and I really couldn’t afford it. But I got into it and as we look and see — and we do see — the qualified potential buyers out here that can get involved and that’s one way. It’s not the only way.”
As of 2023, 57.5 percent of NFL players are Black and 24.9 percent are white, according to NFL demographics from online recruiter Zippia. As of 2020, 9.4 percent of head coaches were Black. In 2020, Jason Wright of the Washington Football Club became the first Black team president in the NFL’s 103-year history.
Jones, however, insists he is working on addressing equity. “Multiple ways to address inequity,” he said at the press conference. “Multiple ways to go do it. And certainly, I would think about one way is to try to work to get ownership improved in the minority area. And I’m all for it and I do it. I work at it. I work at it.”
The only non-white majority owners of an NFL franchise include Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, a Pakistani American, and Kim Pegula, an Asian American who co-owns the Buffalo Bills with her husband, Terry.
In his lawsuit, former NFL reporter Trotter claims he asked Jones why they’re weren’t more Black people in “decision-making positions.” Jones allegedly replied, “If Blacks feel some kind of way, they should buy their own team and hire who they want to hire.”
Jones denies the comment and his record dealing with race relations in the past is terrible, wrote The Root author Noah A. McGee.
For example, there’s a photo of Jones as a young man in 1957 standing by as Black students were hounded by a white mob while they tried to integrate an Arkansas high school. On Jones’ watch, McGee wrote, the only player on the Cowboys team who decided to protest the National Anthem was fired. And after Colin Kaepernick kneeled in protest against police brutality and racial injustice, Jones said, “If we are disrespecting the flag, then we won’t play. Period.”
Media mogul Byron Allen and several other Black people expressed an interest in buying the Denver Broncos in early 2022 in an auction that ultimately reached $4.65 billion. This put the NFL team under the ownership of the Walton-Penner group, including new controlling owner Rob Walton and family.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a press conference that the league wanted to make it easier to enable Black ownership by working with prospective Black buyers to help them gain an “understanding of what it will take financially and from a policy standpoint” to become an owner.
The NFL required the principal franchise owner to have a 30-percent stake in the team, and the entire ownership group could be no more than 24 people. The NFL also limited how much debt could be used to acquire a team, increasing that amount from $500 million to $1 billion prior to the Broncos sale, Bloomberg reported.
“But even with the increased debt limit, there are few people in America able to write a check for 30% of $3 to $4 billion, and the pool of Black Americans is significantly narrower,” wrote Bloomberg Bureau Chief Brett Pulley.
In a Sept. 18 tweet, Trotter, now a columnist with The Athletic, said he asked Jones if the NFL would change its guidelines for purchasing franchises. “He gave me the ‘I didn’t have the means when I bought the Cowboys but found a way, so Blacks can do the same'” Trotter wrote.
Photos: Jim Trotter, former NFL Network journalist, has filed a federal suit against the NFL and NFL Media alleging racial discrimination. Photo credit: Jim Trotter/NABJ / Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones kisses a trophy, July 29, 2023, in Oxnard, Calif. (APo/Mark J. Terrill)
