The cast of ABC’s The View was excited on Wednesday with the news that Jay-Z will be this February’s Super Bowl halftime performer, but Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg were especially hopeful that Jay-Z can use his relationship with the NFL to pursue “social justice.” By “social justice,” Hostin and Goldberg appeared to mean a sort of forced racial demographic box-checking when it comes to the league’s 32 owners, but tellingly they never offered up any idea of what this might look like in the real world.
Hostin began her thoughts by explaining, “I think it's a perfectly valid choice. The one thing that I will say is that when Jay-Z started this partnership in 2019 with the NFL, it was on the backs of the protests, of the social justice initiative, and on the backs of, sort of, the NFL's treatment of Colin Kaepernick.”
With Jay Z being named the Super Bowl halftime performer, The View's Sunny Hostin wants him to do something about the racial demographics of NFL owners, "I think it's a perfectly valid choice. The one thing that I will say is that when Jay-Z started this partnership in 2019 with… pic.twitter.com/JBaFcE0aVt
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) October 28, 2026
She then took aim at the league’s owners, “And while he has done some of that, what I look at when I see the NFL today I see 70 percent black players, 9.4 percent black coaches, only three black head coaches. I also see that there are no black owners of any NFL team. No majority owner. And so when I look at that I think Jay-Z, he's—you know, he's become a billionaire. He's an icon. You can do well but also do good. And I think that there's more work for him to do within the NFL.”
A few minutes later, Goldberg agreed with an analogy that was not quite historically accurate, “I don't know how much heat he has to put on changing how the rules are on owning because—owning a team because you remember when we used to talk sometimes about the early days of the WNBA. You had to be an owner of a team in order to have a woman's basketball team.”
Up until October 2002, all WNBA teams were collectively owned by the NBA in order to help the league get off the ground financially. After that, WNBA teams were individually owned like any other sports league. There was never any requirement that you needed to own an NBA team along with a WNBA team.
Nevertheless, Goldberg kept rolling,” So these things, it's hard to pull that stuff up. And I believe he's still working away at it because he’s smart.”
Whoopi Goldberg agrees, "And I don't know how much heat he has to put on changing how the rules are on owning because—owning a team because you remember when we used to talk sometimes about the early days of the WNBA."
Hostin adds "He has Roger Goodell's ear. The NFL… pic.twitter.com/9Pwovw6slt— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) October 28, 2026
Hostin then returned to add, “He has Roger Goodell's ear. The NFL commissioner. He has his ear. In that sense, Jay-Z, you have the runway to—for social justice.”
Neither Goldberg nor Hostin explained how they would diversify the NFL ownership. Thirty-one of the 32 NFL franchises are private property, and Goodell works for the owners. It is extremely unlikely that owners would ever support a move prohibiting them from passing their teams on to their children. When a team does go up for sale, the league is going to accept the highest bid because they want to increase the value of their own franchises, but it also wouldn’t be fair to the fans or the players for a team sold to someone offering less money just to check a box.
Finally, the most recent NFL team to be sold—the Seattle Seahawks—were bought by the Khosla family. The Khoslas aren’t white, but because they also aren’t black, they don’t fit into Hostin’s and Goldberg’s narrative or “social justice” agenda.
Here is a transcript for the October 28 show:
ABC The View
10/28/2026
11:16 PM ET
SUNNY HOSTIN: I think it's a perfectly valid choice. The one thing that I will say is that when Jay-Z started this partnership in 2019 with the NFL, it was on the backs of the protests, of the social justice initiative, and on the backs of, sort of, the NFL's treatment of Colin Kaepernick.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Right.
HOSTIN: And he famously said that he was going to implement social justice initiatives.
GOLDBERG: Right.
HOSTIN: And while he has done some of that, what I look at when I see the NFL today I see 70 percent black players, 9.4 percent black coaches, only three black head coaches. I also see that there are no black owners of any NFL team. No majority owner. And so when I look at that I think Jay-Z, he's—you know, he's become a billionaire. He's an icon. You can do well but also do good. And I think that there's more work for him to do within the NFL.
…
GOLDBERG: I want to speak to both of those things. I think one of the reasons you may have noticed it more is because it never was before. So, you're seeing all these—and it's like oh, okay. And I don't know how much heat he has to put on changing how the rules are on owning because—owning a team because you remember when we used to talk sometimes about the early days of the WNBA—
HOSTIN: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: —You had to be an owner of a team in order to have a woman's basketball team.
HOSTIN: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: So these things, it's hard to pull that stuff up. And I believe he's still working away at it because he’s smart.
HOSTIN: He has Roger Goodell's ear. The NFL commissioner.
GOLDBERG: Yes!
HOSTIN: He has his ear.
GOLDBERG: Yes. Yes
HOSTIN: In that sense, Jay-Z, you have the runway to—for social justice.
GOLDBERG: Don't assume he hasn't. Don't assume that he hasn't.
