While Super Bowl XL will be remembered for poor play, ridiculously bad officiating, a snow storm and the egregious error of snubbing Motown’s great artists, the NFL’s only unforgivable faux pas was snubbing minority business owners in Detroit.
The NFL spent an estimated $20 million with Detroit-area firms and brought an estimated $300 million into that city’s economy. Yet, a paltry $2 million was spent with Detroit’s African-American-owned businesses. Almost as insulting to Detroit’s black business community is the fact that $1.7 million was spent with black business outside the Detroit metropolitan area.
“Minority vendors were locked out of the opportunity to secure contracts with the Super Bowl,” said Bonita Parker, Rainbow PUSH COO.
The NFL and Detroit Super Bowl XL Host Committee did make sure that at least some of the Super Bowl cash found its way to minority- and women-owned firms.
Under the league’s Emerging Business Program, some 250 firms received contracts worth an estimated $5.8 million for everything from souvenirs to catering and janitorial services.
Rainbow PUSH disputed that figure.
“The city of Detroit is 84 percent black,” said Parker.
“This is unacceptable.”
Detroit’s young black mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, staged an impressive and improbable comeback victory win in his re-election bid in November after trailing most of the campaign. But he must have been busy planning on which Super Bowl parties to attend when black business owners and operators had their plans to cash in on the week of activities intercepted by the NFL in the weeks leading up to the game.