Just what the NFL needs: another rich, white owner who boasts about his testicles

David Tepper may have taken on Donald Trump publicly, but he doesn’t appear too different from the fraternity that already controls the league

Last winter, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson embarrassed the NFL. According to reports by Sports Illustrated, Richardson did much more than that, as the publication unearthed evidence of settlements to bury sexual harassment claims and an allegation of a racial slur aimed at an African American employee. It was a devastating example of problems that women and black people in the sports world have to deal with on a daily basis. But for the other 31 NFL owners, it was a major public relations hit that implicated the league in the wrongs the #MeToo movement has worked to expose. Within 24 hours, Richardson announced he was selling his team (to date, Richardson has not publicly commented on the allegations).

Five months later, Richardson has a buyer for the Panthers. The lucky man is hedge fund manager David Tepper, who will pay Richardson $2.2bn for the rights to the team. Tepper, on the surface, seems like the ideal candidate to distract from the allegations surrounding Richardson, which the NFL has been investigating without much headway since December. Tepper was outspoken against Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, saying, among other things that “Trump masquerades as an angel of light, but he is the father of lies.”

Tepper’s addition to the ranks of NFL ownership has already been framed by some, including Sports Illustrated, as adding to the league’s resistance to Trump, who has been an outspoken critic of Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who have protested police brutality and racial inequality in the justice system. Perhaps more importantly, as an admitted sexual assailant residing in the White House, Trump is perhaps the ultimate symbol of toxic masculinity.

Tepper may be less obviously odious than Richardson. But it is disingenuous to frame Tepper as a voice for equality and change simply because he thinks Trump is a liar, or because he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

If anything, some of Tepper’s workplace mannerisms – detailed in a 2010 New York magazine profile – sound eerily reminiscent of the overbearing, dominating behavior Richardson routinely used against his employees. At Appaloosa, his almost entirely male-staffed hedge fund, Tepper kept a pair of brass testicles on his desk affixed to a plaque reading “THE MOST VALUABLE SET OF ALL TIME”. One former employee said he would keep a set of breast implants (a gift from a client that manufactured them) and throw them around his office. Another employee described Tepper as “an asshole, to say the least.” This employee said, “I had stuff thrown at me. He can be a nice guy off the desk, in the kitchen or walking to the car. It’s almost like Jekyll and Hyde, you didn’t know any given day who was going to walk through the door.” As a youth softball coach, Tepper was known for getting so angry that his screams could be heard from a block down.

Particularly in a competitive, boys club-style workplace like the NFL or a hedge fund, this kind of behavior from an executive is treated as a fact of life or a running office joke. That’s also how NFL owners responded to the accusations against Richardson, who would routinely comment on women’s backsides on “Jeans Day” and leave notes for female employees with his personal requests regarding their grooming habits. Bob McNair, the Houston Texans owner, said at the NFL’s annual meetings, “Some of the comments he might have made could have been made jokingly and misunderstood. I’m sure he didn’t mean to offend anybody.”

It’s impossible to ignore that Tepper is yet another older rich white guy joining an ownership club primarily made up of older rich, white guys. Tepper is from a different generation – he grew up middle class in Pittsburgh before rising to the top of the investment world – but he differs from many NFL owners primarily in style, not substance. It doesn’t matter if he checks the right box on the ballot or says the right words in front of a camera if his actions – like screaming and throwing things at his employees – prove that he sees certain people as lesser than others.

That problem, of course, would not necessarily be solved simply by a minority or a woman buying the team. But we shouldn’t ignore the plea of the woman, a former Panthers employee, who spoke out to Sports Illustrated about Richardson’s behavior and the many people who enabled it in a series of open letters published in late April. In the final letter, the unnamed employee addresses the future owner of the Panthers, then unknown:

“I cannot wait for you to take over the team so I can be a Carolina Panthers fan again. I hope you are female and/or African American, but regardless, please respect the power that comes with your new position. Don’t use it to intimidate or oppress people. Actually, be proactive and use it to mandate equality.”

Tepper is, glaringly, neither female nor African American. Perhaps there is a chance he can be the person the anonymous Panthers employee wants him to be. Perhaps the brass balls and the aggressive workplace behavior are just quirks of Tepper’s personality and not a sign of something deeper. The New York profile was, after all, written eight years ago and perhaps Tepper, as he says in the profile, is “kinder and gentler” than he once was.

Richardson was highly respected among NFL owners, and judging by McNair’s comments, the claims that he was a harasser and all-around creep in the workplace hasn’t changed that opinion. The fact that Tepper is willing to speak out against Donald Trump does not mitigate the fact that the NFL owners are still mostly a fraternity of men who get off on their own power, whether they are lording it over their players or their employees or the women in all aspects of their lives. The only reason Richardson is getting pushed out is because the wrong news got out at the wrong time. Richardson is merely part of the NFL’s culture. Replacing him with another billionaire, no matter how centrist, will neither fix the deep rot at the league’s core nor the problems in the workplace for the women and minorities it employs.

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