NFL Needs To Do A Better Job on Diversity

With mass protests across the country bringing focus on racial justice in this country, professional sports leagues need to take a look at their own record in hiring head coaches and front office executives of color. Currently, the National Football League has just two African American general managers and three African American head coaches. This is in a league that 68 percent of the racial composition consists of African American men. Having head coaches and team executives who are African American opens the door for more potential employment opportunities and sends a powerful message to younger people of color that they too can aspire to these positions.

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDE) at the University of Central Florida recently released a study on the racial makeup of executives and coaches in each major professional sport. They found that the NFL lags behind the diversity practices of the NBA in six out of seven categories. Only 20 percent of professional personnel in the NFL are African American, and just 12 percent of team personnel rank at the vice president level or higher.

Hiring by teams tends to come from pre-existing networks that are relied on for candidates. In order to bring opportunities to minority candidates, they need to be brought into this network to display their skills before the job opportunity arises. There needs to be an emphasis on bringing more African Americans into the pipeline at all levels.

When it comes to expanding the coaching ranks, Jeffri Chadiha of Sports Illustrated has made the following suggestions:

1.      Allow teams to bring coordinators and assistant coaches to NFL League meetings. This would allow them to network with owners and executives and make contacts.

2.      Allow coordinators to coach College All-Star games. This would give African American coordinators opportunities to showcase their coaching skills.

3.      Make more assistant coaches available for press opportunities during the season. This would allow African American assistants to gain more profile and stature.

The NFL enacted the Rooney Rule in 2003, requiring all NFL franchises to include at least one minority candidate in their hiring process. At times, the rule has had a positive impact and there was a year in which eight African Americans were head coaches. The number has precipitously slipped this year. A rule was proposed that would reward teams that included more minority candidates in the hiring process by elevating the third-round draft pick of participating teams. It ought not be necessary to incentivize teams in that manner to encourage them to strive towards a desirable goal.

One reason that encouraging diversity in the NFL is particularly desirable is the symbolic effect it has on minority hiring. The NFL dominates the sports landscape today, not only as the most popular team sport by three to one, but as the most popular source of television programming week-to-week during the season. It is the straw that stirs the sports drink most dramatically.