October 21, 2009) - Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh has dominated media headlines the last two weeks with his participation in a group interested in buying the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams.
The highly controversial radio talk show host was a topic of discussion almost everywhere, until the group announced its plans to continue its bid for the owner’s box without him.
But there’s one fact related to the Limbaugh/Rams story that hasn’t been mentioned in many headlines.
According to an ESPN.com article, one of the six groups interested in buying the Rams is led by African-American businessman Donald Watkins.
While not a well-known name, Watkins has made a major imprint in the business world.
The AFRO has learned Watkins is one of the wealthiest Black people in the country. Although he may not be as popular as Oprah or former BET owner Bob Johnson, the Birmingham Business Journal once reported Watkins is believed to have a net-worth of nearly $2 billion dollars, although he has never discussed or confirmed how much money he has.
“It's bad business to publicize your net worth because when you move to do the next deal, people know your limitations and you can't negotiate effectively,” Watkins told CNNMoney.com.
The Birmingham, Ala,, native comes from a family of wealth in education. His father, Levi Watkins Sr., served as a longtime president of Alabama State University, while his eldest brother, Levi Jr., is an associate dean at Johns Hopkins University and a world renowned heart surgeon who performed the world’s first human implantation of an automatic heart defibrillator in 1980.
But Donald isn’t short on achievements himself. Watkins won 40 of 41 cases as a lawyer representing the city of Birmingham during the 1980s and 1990s. CBS News reported in 2002 that Watkins earned $10 million during his years as a trial lawyer in the ‘90s, and invested much of his wealth into the energy technology industry. He also founded his own state-chartered, full-service bank in Alabama, and currently serves on the board of directors of State Mutual Insurance Company in Rome, Ga.
Watkins told CNN he dreamed of owning an American sports franchise for more than 20 years, and came close to purchasing the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball in 2002.
Watkins had big plans for the Twins, envisioning them to become the most dominate sports franchise of the future.
“The Twins will become America’s team,” Watkins said, according to a 2002 USATODAY article. “We will market the team globally and dominate the sport…People think the Yankees dominate now? That’s nothing compared to the way we’ll dominate. Remember how John Wooden used to dominate with UCLA in the ’60s? Minnesota will experience that same euphoria. We’ll be the Tiger Woods of baseball.”
Yet according to the Birmingham Business Journal, Watkins passed on the opportunity of buying the Twins when his friend, Richard Scrushy, former CEO of HealthSouth Corp., faced a $2.7 billion fraud and conspiracy charge.
Scrushy was found not guilty, thanks to Watkins serving as his lead attorney. And now it appears the 62-year-old is ready to continue pursuing his dreams of becoming a major American sports franchise owner.
“Any doubts about my ability to buy a team have been removed,” Watkins told the BBJ in 2005. “Since winning the Scrushy case, I have removed all questions about credentials and credibility.”
But the last time a Black man came close to becoming an NFL majority owner he ended up settling for less. According to The Associated Press, in 2005, African-American businessman Reggie Fowler agreed to buy the Minnesota Vikings for $635 million, but had to settle as only a limited partner because he couldn’t provide adequate proof of his financial stake in the ownership group. He took that role to avoid losing a $20 million deposit, and owns 40 percent.
German businessman Zygi Wilf and his family own the other 60 percent.
Fowler is one of three known African Americans who serve as limited partnership owners. In other sports arenas, tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams recently purchased a small percentage of the Miami Dolphins.
But how long will we have to wait before we see the first Black majority owner?
If Watkins’ credentials and credibility are as impeccable as his record suggests, it won’t be long at all.
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Rush Limbaugh: Transcript of radio broadcast from Oct. 14, 2008
By Keith Vance
TRANSCRIPT OF RUSH LIMBAUGH ON HIS RADIO SHOW FROM OCT. 14, 2008
Editor’s note: This is a verbatim transcript of Limbaugh explaining how ACORN, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are all involved in a radical leftwing conspiracy to teach black kids to hate America.
From the time of my birth 57 years ago to today, this country has grown and expanded, prosperity has opened its doors for more and more people around the world, not just people born in this country.
We know the stories of asians immigrating and running rings around people born in this country academically in California. We know all about the immigration, legal and illegal, to get into the country. We know that the standard of living has risen. We know that technological advancement is going along at light speed.
And yet, during this period of time, whether it be the last 57 years, or the last 20 years, it seems that the majority of the black population has remained angry, frustrated and behind – they’ve been left behind. They’re acting like they’ve been left behind, and of course we’ve heard that this is because of racism, natural systemic institutional racism in America. We’re unfair. That this country is just horrible and rotten.
Do you ever ask yourself how it is that people not even born here can come here and in a few short years begin prospering in school, they’re own business, and yet people who are born in this country somehow have been raised to hate it – to still think they’re back in the days of slavery.
I actually think, after studying all this ACORN stuff, and reading what Stanley Kurtz has written about this, I actually believe that what has taken place here, in addition to liberal Democrat legislation – such as the great society and the war on poverty, which a lot of people would now acknowledge really busted up the black family by the government taking the place of a husband and father – he’s free to roam around and bear no responsibility. The mother remained the mother, she got the financial assistance from this legislation from the federal government. The federal government became the father. The father didn’t have to hang around in order for the kids to be OK – depending on how you define OK.
And as you study more and more of this ACORN stuff you find that it has been part of an entire movement that has been going for two maybe three decades right under our noses. We thought that it was just liberal welfare policies and all that that kept blacks from progressing while other minorities grew and prospered but no. It is these wackos from Bill Ayers to Jeremiah Wright to other anti-american afro-centric black liberation theologists, working with ACORN, and Barack Obama is smack dab in the middle of it. They have been training young black kids to hate hate hate this country. And they trained their parents before that to hate hate hate this country. It was a movement. It was a Bill Ayers anti-capitalist anti-american educational movement. ACORN is how it was implemented right under our noses.
They’re doing far more folks than just cheating when it comes to elections and registration. They’re in deep in this mortgage crisis. ACORN and Obama, and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the Democrat Party have their fingerprints the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The whole concept of affordable housing was people who can’t afford a mortgage are going to get one, because America is unfair.
It has been a movement. It has been a religion. And Obama and Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers were all up to their big ears in it.
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