Colin Kaepernick's Acquisition Company Loses Business Deal, Casting Doubt on Former Player's Market Value

Former NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s scotched multimillion-dollar business deal is raising doubts about his ability to sell his name, according to the company who parted ways with the protest leader.

Kaepernick, who hasn’t played football since the end of the 2016 season which capped his year-long protest against the United States during the playing of the national anthem, has spent the last five years banking millions of dollars partnering with companies by simply lending his name to their causes and products. But this practice may be delivering diminished returns after financial services corporation, The Change Company, canceled its deal with the former player because he refused to engage in interviews to promote the collaboration, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Kaepernick has made millions with his SPAC group by partnering with companies that only want to use his name to enhance their standing in the business world. An SPCA, or a special-purpose acquisition company, is an operation that has no specific product except a celebrity name. The purpose of the SPAC is to merge with a company that has an actual service or product line so that the celebrity name can help grow the business with which the SPAC merges. In this age of social justice activism, SPACs have proliferated at an accelerated rate as celebrities and athletes have sold their names for stacks of cash to businesses that then go out and use the celebrity as a sales tool.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 28: Colin Kaepernick attends the Netflix Limited Series “Colin in Black and White” Premiere at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on October 28, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Netflix)

But according to the Journal, Kaepernick refused to go through with interviews with several print media outlets nor would he do an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America so he could promote the business deal.

Kaepernick’s SPAC could have made as much as $80 million if the deal with The Change Company had been consummated.

The whole mess spurred Change Company CEO Steve Sugarman to wonder if Kaepernick’s name was worth spending millions to acquire.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 28: Colin Kaepernick speaks onstage during the Netflix Limited Series “Colin in Black and White” Premiere at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on October 28, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Netflix)

“There is a real question about whether there is [a] halo effect that translates into investor dollars,” Sugarman wrote in an email. “We need to question that assumption.”

The question of whether or not there is mounting Kaepernick fatigue out there is an interesting one. As each year passes, the former player becomes more radical in his proclamations about American culture. In November, for instance, he called the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhosue a “validation of the terrorist acts of a white supremacist.” That same month, he claimed that playing for the NFL was somehow “just like” slavery. And in his recent TV miniseries, he suggested that all whites are racists who seek to keep black men down.

Meanwhile, as Kaepernick continues his near daily onslaught against the U.S.A. and accuses our country of racism and slavery, he has been studiously silent on the very real racism and slavery going on in China, a country where many of the products he sells for Nike are manufactured.

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