Phillips, Cargill make statement about Black team ownership by winning professional softball title
Former Major League Baseball star Brandon Phillips and current women's pro wrestler Jade Cargill took on professional sports franchise ownership together less than a year ago
Brandon Phillips and Jade Cargill still are trying to grasp what they have achieved as a Black couple that took on sports franchise ownership together less than a year ago.
Phillips, a former Major League Baseball star, and Cargill, a current women’s professional wrestler, steered the Austin-based Texas Smoke to the Women’s Professional Fastpitch softball championship in their first season. They are co-owners and decision makers for a franchise with 26 employees — three in the front office, three coaches and 20 players.
Majority ownership in major North American pro sports by anyone other than white men is rare. Though Phillips and Cargill don't own an NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball team, they still take pride in showing that Black entrepreneurs can successfully call the shots.
“How many people can really say that I was co-owner with my queen?” Phillips said. “And we won a championship.”
Phillips was a World Series champion, All-Star and Gold Glove winner during a 17-year MLB career. Cargill played Division I college basketball for Jacksonville and now is a star performer for All Elite Wrestling, where she has been the AEW TBS champion. Though they are not married, they refer to themselves as “spouses” and a “power couple,” and have a daughter together.
They would like their success as Black owners to become more common. Census Bureau data from 2022 showed that roughly 59% of the U.S. population was white and not Hispanic or Latino and 14% was Black. Even relative to those numbers, Black ownership in sports has been rare.
The Institute for
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