NFL Team Owners are Sending a Clear and Powerful Message to Shedeur and Deion Sanders
- Donald V. Watkins
- Apr 26
- 3 min read
By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on April 26, 2025
An Editorial Opinion
The NFL draft started Thursday night in a televised spectacle from Green Bay, Wisconsin. The League completed Round 1 that night. Sensational Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, whom many sports analysts predicted would be a first round pick, was not drafted in Round 1.
Shedeur Sanders is the son of legendary NFL player and current Colorado Head Football Coach Deion Sanders. Shedeur's football stats in college were phenomenal.
Rounds 2 and 3 of the NFL draft occurred Friday. Again, Shedeur was not drafted.
Rounds 4 through 7 start today. Sanders may be drafted in Round 4 or passed over for several more rounds.
Why?
The 32 NFL Majority Owners are extremely conservative individuals. Except for Pakistani-American Shahid Kahn, all of them are White. They are using the 2025 NFL Draft to send a clear and powerful message to Shedeur and Deion -- unlike college football, the Majority Owners run this professional sports league with impunity.
Based upon my previous experience with NFL owners, it appears to me that the Majority Owners have absolutely no interest in any form of the “Daddy Ball” arrangement Shedeur enjoyed at Jackson State and Colorado spilling over into the League.
The NFL is a monopoly consisting of 32 protected fiefdoms. The rulers of these fiefdoms are not interested in any potential arm-chair coaching from Deion Sanders about the team's or Shedeur’s performance after Shedeur is drafted. As such, Shedeur's status as a top draft pick has been intentionally deflated in front of the entire world.
As much as the Majority Owners like Deion as a sports celebrity, he does not own a NFL team. He is not regarded as a peer. No Black American is a Majority Owner. The few Blacks who are part of the ownership group of a handful of NFL teams are “Limited Partners" who have zero rights in team management decisions and operational matters.
The Wealth Derived from NFL Teams Goes to Owners; Players Only Get Salaries and Bonuses
When I competed for an opportunity to become the Majority Owner of the St. Louis Rams in 2009 and 2010, the League arranged for me to visit several NFL team owners as part of that process.
During my private conversations with Majority Owners, their primary focus was on the Collective Bargaining Agreement and annual salary caps. There was never any discussion about individual players, whether superstars or not. The same was true for the confidential due diligence materials that was provided to me on the Rams.
While the salary cap has increased from $123 million in 2009 to $279.2 million in 2025, the money paid to players pales in comparison to the wealth created for Majority Owners from the NFL ownership platform.
For example, in 2010, my bid for the Rams was $1 billion for 100% of the team. I lost out to Stan Kroenke, the Rams’ sole Limited Partner who exercised his pre-existing right of first refusal and matched my bid.
In 2018, the Carolina Panthers sold for $2.3 billion. In 2022, the Denver Broncos sold for $4.65 billion. In 2023, the Washington Commanders sold for $6 billion.
In the world of conservative power-players and their multibillion dollar sports deals, a single draftee will never impact the decisionmaking process of Majority Owners, no matter what his stats were on the college playing field. These owners do not want any player who might impair the growth in the accretive value of their rapidly appreciating NFL asset. Whether the team is at the top or bottom of the League, the wealth derived from ownership of a NFL team is considerable and it skyrockets each year.
The message NFL Majority Owners are sending to Shedeur and Deion Sanders (and all aspiring professional football athletes) is this: “In the larger scheme of things, you are insignificant in our business world.” They sent the same message to Colin Kaepernick, but somehow NFL fans seem to have forgotten it.
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