The National Football League has officially partnered with rapper Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's entertainment company, Roc Nation, on a host of business initiatives including serving as the "face" of the NFL's Inspire Change social justice initiative as well as playing a large role in its entertainment operations.  The partnership was first reported by Front Office Sport.

"With its global reach, the National Football League has the platform and opportunity to inspire change across the country," Carter said in a press release. "Roc Nation has shown that entertainment and enacting change are not mutually exclusive ideas -- instead, we unify them. This partnership is an opportunity to strengthen the fabric of communities across America."

"Every conversation I've had with Jay has been inspiring," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday. "Not just on his perspective on the process of how we do the entertainment, but what we should try to achieve. We always say we should get better and we should evolve. We think we should partner with the best, and that's why we're sitting here. We believe we're partnering with the best. So, his perspective is going to drive us."

All of this has its genesis from Kaepernick kneeling during the 2016 NFL preseason to protest police brutality and social injustice.  Many other players from the NFL and other professional sports leagues soon joined the movement -- and far-left sports publication SB Nation was I'm sure more than happy to provide an impressive timeline of its evolution over the course of about a year in case you're interested.

In May of 2018 the NFL issued a policy prohibiting kneeling from players while on the field or they would be fined, only to suspend the policy after a grievance was filed by the National Football League Players' Association.  This, unsurprisingly, resulted in many more instances of kneeling during the 2018 season.

In what was -- almost undoubtedly -- a thinly-veiled, carrot-dangling gesture to players to get them to actually stand up and respect the flag (and quit driving away fans), the NFL launched the Inspire Change initiative in January of this year.  According to the NFL, "through this initiative, NFL teams and the league office work with the Players Coalition and other NFL players to support programs and initiatives that reduce barriers to opportunity, with a focus on three priority areas: education and economic advancement; police and community relations; and criminal justice reform."

Ok, fair enough.  If the NFL wants to continue pumping millions of dollars into treating the disease of irresponsible and anti-social behavior in America's inner-cities rather than trying to actually find the cure for it, that's their business.

But to choose a far-left entertainer who has boasted about being "militant" when he got pulled over by the police, routinely refers to folks of his own race as "n words" as well as women as "bitches" and "hoes," as the face of your "social justice" initiative?

"Absurd" doesn't even begin to characterize the move.

And in case you weren't aware or had forgotten, this is the same Jay-Z who openly taunted the NFL with following lyrics from his wonderful ballad "APES -- T" last year:

"I said no to the Superbowl, you need me, I don't need you.  Every night we in the endzone, tell the NFL we in stadiums too."

Imagine, oh, I don't know, Kid Rock or Ted Nugent openly taunting a business and then being rewarded with what can only by presumed to be a very lucrative contract to partner with them less than a year later.

Hell, imagine any openly conservative entertainer partnering with the NFL on a level like this at all.

What we have here yet again is another professional sports league commissioner -- much like the NBA's Adam Silver -- spinelessly placating the social justice crowd and trying to kiss the collective rear-end of the inner-city underclass where antisocial behavior is not only tolerated, but endorsed.  And Goodell apparently hasn't learned any lessons from the debacle that his own indecision and waffling on the anthem issue has caused by choosing to partner with a far-left rapper.

But let's face it -- the path of least resistance will always be a guy like Jay-Z.  The tough-love -- but entirely accurate -- message from a partnership that could come from someone like a Dr. Ben Carson or singer Joy Villa would be drowned out in a second from the racist far-left and the players that they back.

Roger Goodell remarked a few times on working with "the best" in this partnership.

It's scary to think of what "the worst" could be...

The Skipper is a co-founder of The Right Field.  He can be reached at info@therightfield.com. Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter