The other issue Diddy is going to face as it pertains to the Panthers in particular is that they aren’t a cheap franchise. There is a lot of speculation over how much people are going to pay for an NFL team in 2017 or 2018. According to Forbes, the market for NFL teams has slowed in recent years, with large percentages of teams like the Titans and Broncos sitting on the market unsold. There are also a host of teams, including the Bears, Lions, and Saints, that could potentially go up for sale in the near future, which would, in theory at least, keep prices down.
But as of right now, the Panthers are valued at about $2.3 billion, according to Forbes, which means Diddy would need to come up with significantly more money than just the $1 billion Haslam paid for the Browns in 2012. Puff wouldn’t necessarily need to come up with the full asking price for the Panthers. But as Forbes points out, the NFL has a rule in place that requires the buyer of an NFL team to put down at least 30 percent of the asking price. So Diddy would need to spend almost every penny he has—give or take a few million—in order to purchase the Panthers as a majority owner.
But even with all of that being said, it wouldn’t necessarily be impossible for Diddy to get into the game and purchase an NFL team, if he’s able to get creative. In the immediate aftermath of the tweets he sent out on Sunday night, at least two celebrities pledged their financial support to Diddy’s idea to buy the Panthers. Warriors star Steph Curry said he would be down to do what he can to make it happen.
Colin Kaepernick also showed interest in becoming part of an ownership group to buy the Panthers.
I want in on the ownership group! Let’s make it happen! https://twitter.com/diddy/status/942572662311841797 …
Small investments from Curry and Kaepernick would likely do little to inch Diddy closer to his dream of owning an NFL team. But the idea of getting a larger group of famous people together to invest in the Panthers might, at the very least, be worth pursuing. Stephen Ross took that approach back in 2009 when he bought the Dolphins. He plopped down $1.1 billion of his own money to assume a 95 percent stake in the team, but he also called on celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Serena Williams, Fergie, Gloria Estefan, and more to make up the difference. Outside of infusing some extra cash into the operation, it also gave the Dolphins a big PR bump when new ownership took over.
At the end of the day, there’s no way of knowing if Diddy is going to be able to buy the Panthers right now. Since the team isn’t technically for sale just yet, there’s no price on it, and there’s no telling how motivated Richardson will or won’t be to sell. It’s also unclear if people like Curry and Kaepernick are serious about investing in an NFL team with Diddy, or just talking about it for the retweets.
But NFL teams don’t go up for sale very often, and even though there are a few that could hit the market in the coming years, there’s no guarantee they’ll be there anytime soon. So if this is really something Diddy wants to pursue, he has between now and the end of the NFL season to figure out how he’s going to do it. Money-wise, it doesn’t sound like it’ll be easy. But if we’ve learned anything about Diddy over the last two decades, it’s that we’d never count him out when it comes to living out a dream, even one as wild as owning an NFL team.
