On Sunday night, a few hours after the Panthers beat the Packers to keep their playoff hopes alive, Carolina owner Jerry Richardson—who is currently being investigated by the NFL over a series of sexual misconduct allegations—shocked the NFL community by announcing that he plans on selling the Panthers at the conclusion of the season. It’s unclear whether or not the sexual misconduct allegations played a part in the sale. But in a statement he released through the Panthers, Richardson acknowledged that the franchise he helped bring to North Carolina in 1995 will go up for sale as soon as the Panthers’ 2017-18 season is over.
That’s when Diddy sprung back into action. After putting his NFL “dream” to the side for the last couple months, he responded to the news about Richardson selling his team by revealing that he wants to buy it. Diddy sent out a series of tweets about his interest in buying the Panthers and called on the other 31 NFL owners to allow him to do it once the season ends. Diddy brought his usual unbridled enthusiasm to Twitter while explaining why he would be the right man for the job.
There are no majority African American NFL owners. Let’s make history.
The question now is: Could Diddy actually buy the Panthers? Or more specifically, could Diddy actually afford to become the majority owner of an NFL franchise?
At this point in his career, we wouldn’t put anything past Diddy, so we will respectfully decline when it comes to answering the first question. But the answer to the second question is pretty easy: No. And that’s not meant to be a slight at Diddy’s career earnings.
According to Forbes’ Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists list that was released back in May, Diddy is still richer than all of his fellow hip-hop artists. He landed at the top of the list for the sixth consecutive year in 2017 with his net worth listed at around $820 million. The Ciroc deal he has in place with Diageo, his stake in the TV network Revolt, and of course, everything he has in his music portfolio have all made Diddy a very, very wealthy man. To put things into the proper perspective, Diddy has almost $100 million more than Dr. Dre, and Diddy’s net worth is nearly 10 times that of Drake’s.
But the problem is that Diddy’s net worth is still just a fraction of the net worth of the average NFL owner. It would be decidedly unfair to compare his net worth to someone like Seahawks owner Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates and has a net worth that is somewhere in the vicinity of $20 to $23 billion. He’s by far the richest NFL owner. But Diddy is also worth a whole lot less than someone like Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who has a net worth of about $3.6 billion and is on the low end of the NFL net worths. It’s what could ultimately prevent Diddy from buying an NFL team like the Panthers outright.