“There’s also a matter of who they think is most marketable, who resonates with their fan base,” said Anthony Weems, an assistant professor at Florida International University who wrote a dissertation on NFL owners and the social structure they created over a century.
It’s more complex than simply saying owners have long been more comfortable hiring people who looked and talked like them, though that certainly could be one element in play in a league that didn’t hire a single Black head coach between Fritz Pollard in the 1920s and Art Shell in 1989. In many ways, the academics say, the arc of diversity and inclusion in the NFL mirrors that in America itself. It’s an informal system in which wealthy men, particularly wealthy white men with social and economic backgrounds, help each other out.” “To understand this problem, you have to look at it from a broader macro-historical lens,” said John Singer, who teaches courses on diversity and social justice in sports at Texas A&M. In 2021, the process produced these statistics: Black players make up about 70% of team rosters but the league has only three Black head coaches, while it had eight in 2011 Black coaches who fail in their first try in the jobs get inordinately fewer second and third chances than their white counterparts the NFL this year recalibrated its much-celebrated Rooney Rule, which ensures minority candidates for front-office positions are identified and interviewed, to make sure teams talk to at least two such candidates for front-office positions and coordinator roles.Īcademics who study the subject say the latest set of underwhelming numbers, along with the latest set of changes implemented in an attempt to improve them, are in line with the century-long history of a league that has been controlled by rich white men. The lead investigator for the latest NFL Inclusion and Diversity Report gives a nod to the less-than-satisfying nature of the numbers in that report by leading off his opening message with the reminder: “Progress is a process.”
This basic head count might offer the simplest explanation for how, even with rules in place for nearly two decades that are designed to improve diversity, the league has struggled to build a pipeline for bringing Blacks and other minorities into coaching and front-office positions. Of that select group, all but two have been white. Over the past 100 years, around 110 people have owned controlling portions of NFL teams.