Soon after Jay’s NFL partnership announcement, the league put on what many consider a sham workout for Kaepernick to showcase his talent to NFL teams, in a bid to potentially land a spot on one of those teams. Things went sideways really fast, from out of the ordinary contract clauses to misunderstandings about who would be allowed to record the exercise.
In a conversation with Katherine Rosman for The New York Times, the music mogul and businessman, who himself – through his Roc Nation/Team Roc initiative – has taken on the cause of prison reform and fighting racial injustices, shared his thoughts on Kaepernick and the NFL. ”No one is saying [Kaepernick] hasn’t been done wrong. He was done wrong. I would understand if it was three months ago. But it was three years ago and someone needs to say, ‘What do we do now — because people are still dying?’”
The partnership has already begun to bear fruit. The most recent example is a PSA sponsored by the NFL featuring the family of Botham Jean, the young man shot to death when an off-duty Dallas police officer entered his apartment by mistake and killed him because she says she thought he was an intruder. Jay’s Team Roc is also suing the state of Mississippi and the Mississippi Department of Corrections for its treatment of prisoners.
