In the immediate aftermath of the news of a civil lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of raping a minor more than 20 years ago, we asked the NFL for a comment, given his relationship with the league. We received no response, on or off the record.
At Wednesday’s quarterly ownership meeting in Dallas, the league addressed the situation with an off-the-record quote.
“With the ongoing legal process, [there’s no change to the relationship](https://apnews.com/article/jayz-diddy-goodell-nfl-d2135cbdd91f72cdcbcc3d50108451c0) with Roc Nation and that includes the Super Bowl,” an unnamed source told Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press. Roc Nation, owned by Jay-Z, produces the Super Bowl halftime show.
The source spoke on the condition of anonymity, explaining that it involves a legal matter. However, the NFL has issued quotes regarding past situations that involved ongoing legal matters.
The decision to attach no one’s name to the quote points to the fact that, at this stage of the proceedings, no one knows how things will play out. The league surely has a contract with Jay-Z. If there’s a provision that gives the league the ability to terminate the relationship with cause based on certain types of misconduct, it most likely doesn’t activate based simply on the filing of a civil complaint.
Jay-Z has [responded very aggressively](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/jay-z-sexual-lawsuit-super-bowl-halftime-nfl-1236083236/) to the allegations. He has accused attorney Tony Buzbee (who has had many cases involving NFL figures and teams in recent years) of extortion, apparently based on a pre-lawsuit effort to settle the claim. While it might feel like extortion to the person who is given a chance to resolve the case before the filing of the lawsuit, it’s not. Demand letters are sent all the time by lawyers representing individuals who have legal claims to assert. For both sides, there’s potential value in resolving the case before it becomes a public legal battle.
That said, if the claims are false and the lawyer either knows they’re false or has failed to make a proper investigation of the claims before asserting them, that could be a problem. A pre-suit demand letter, however, is not extortion on its face.
So the league seems to be striking a balance between supporting Jay-Z against the mere assertion of a claim and reserving the right to change its tune if the case results in a verdict against him, months if not years from now. There’s a chance that, by the time the case resolves, the relationship between the NFL and Roc Nation will have concluded for unrelated reasons.