Race and Pathways to Power in the National Football League

Abstract

Recent studies have found that African American managers and executives tend to have relatively few opportunities to exercise higher order and reward-relevant job functions such as job authority, job autonomy, and substantive complexity of work. Most of this research has focused on minority access to job authority in mainstream corporate America. The authors focus on a very specific industry—the National Football League (NFL)—to examine minority access to job authority. Using data collected on all active coaches in the NFL between the 2000 and 2006 seasons, this study examines the influence of race on the attainment of job authority in the NFL. Logistic regression analyses reveal significant direct effects of race on being (a) assigned to coach central positions, (b) appointed as offensive or defensive coordinators, and (c) hired as head coaches, net of measured objective qualifications, including experience, leadership, and performance. Thus, race appears to have both direct and indirect effects on access to managerial authority in the NFL.

Racial Identity and Its Impact on Job Applicants

“…As these issues are well known, several initiatives have been created to decrease access discrimination. For instance, due to the low number of African American head coaches in the National Football League (NFL), in 2002 the organization instated the "Rooney Rule" which requires teams to interview at least one minority when hiring a head coach (Braddock, Smith, & Dawkins, 2012;Solow, Solow, & Walker, 2011). Solow et al (2011) believed that the Rooney Rule may only be a superficial fix for the problem, and that other programs created to establish more minority coaches at the collegiate level may deem more beneficial to create lasting change.…”

Pipelines on the Gridiron: Player Backgrounds, Opportunity Structures and Racial Stratification in American College Football

“…In professional football, white assistant coaches are promoted at higher rates than similarly-performing minorities, suggesting that racial stereotypes continue to be influential in football culture and leadership (Rider et al 2016). Further, the lack of experience with central, leadership positions on the football field can inhibit upward mobility for racial minorities pursuing coaching careers (Braddock et al 2012;Day 2015). The rarity of black coaches is notable given the omnipresence of black athletes in football.…”

Transitions to the Top

“…The risk period for this analysis is the season in which coaches began their first full-time job until (a) they transition to an FBS executive position or (b) they reach the end of the observation period without experiencing the transition-event (i.e., censored). The use of event-history methods offers numerous advantages over cross-sectional methods, such as logistic regression or descriptive crosstabulations, that have been common in prior research examining racial segregation in the coaching profession (e.g., Anderson, 1993;Braddock, Smith, & Dawkins, 2012;Finch et al, 2010). First, they allow for the investigation of coaches' entire career histories to determine if and when they have occupied high-status positions.…”