Last week, ESPN’s Mike Sando wrote a scathing article detailing the NFL’s lack of progress in tackling its diversity problem. This report, which called attention to the lack of opportunities for first-time minority head coaches as well as a noticeable shortage of African-American’s in offensive coordinator positions among other things, sparked conversations throughout the sports world. Most notably, the soon-to-be Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy voiced some strong opinions about how NFL teams were “violating the spirit” of the Rooney Rule, which was designed to promote inclusion and opportunity for minority coaching candidates.
Many people believe these diversity issues extend to the other major professional sports leagues in America, too. The NBA, which is often regarded as the leader in diversity and social issues among the pro sports leagues, has recently received criticism for its lack of African-Americans in front office and coaching positions, particularly given how a majority of the league’s players–roughly 75%–are black. As one assistant general manager told The Undefeated, “If 75 percent of the NHL’s general managers were black, I’m sure it would be a big issue.” Over in MLB, similar criticism has been voiced because, despite the league’s rather large Hispanic population and increasing amount of African-American players, only two of the league’s thirty managers are minorities.
I don’t necessarily object to any of the findings in Sando’s report nor do I completely disagree with the recent criticism levied against the NBA and MLB–none of these leagues are perfect. However, after researching this topic further, it’s clear that the NFL, NBA, and MLB do not have major diversity problems. Contrary to common sentiment in sports media, the idea that they do is misguided.
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) is the leading source for assessments relating to gender and racial treatment in amateur, collegiate, and professional sports. On a yearly basis, it publishes a report card of the hiring practices of women and minorities in many of the North American professional sports leagues as well as the NCAA.
As opposed to the notion that the amount of minority coaches and front office personnel should match the percentage of those particular players in the game, TIDES takes a different, more practical approach. Here’s an excerpt from their latest Racial & Gender Report Card (RGRC) for the NFL, which explains how they calculate their grades for racial hiring practices:
“As in previous reports, the 2015 Racial and Gender Report Card data shows that professional sport’s front office hiring practices do not nearly reflect the number of players of color competing in the game. However, to give it perspective for sports fans, The Institute issues the grades in relation to overall patterns in society. Federal affirmative action policies state that the workplace should reflect the percentage of the people in the racial group in the population. Thus, with approximately 24 percent of the population being people of color, an A was achieved if 24 percent of the positions were held by people of color, B if 12 percent of the positions were held by people of color, and C if it had only nine percent. Grades for race below this level were assigned a D for six percent or F for any percent equal to or below five percent. The category of players was weighted at 20 percent, head and assistant coaches at 30 and 10 percent, respectively, general managers at 10 percent, team vice presidents at five percent, senior administration at 10 percent and professional administrators at 15 percent for race.”
Simply put, what people fail to consider regarding the diversity issues in professional sports is the demography of the United States. According to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census, of the roughly 320 million people in this country, approximately 62% are white, 17% are Hispanic, 13% are black, and 6% are Asian. So what makes TIDES’s grading system more pragmatic is that it grades relative to current societal and workplace trends. And with this framework, many of the professional sports leagues being criticized today for their lack of diversity actually did quite well when graded by TIDES in their latest reports.
Let’s start with the NFL. For the sixth straight year, the NFL received an A for racial hiring practices. In fact, the NFL’s score in this category was an all-time best at 93.1. In contrast to what Mike Sando claimed, this a drastic improvement from where the NFL was ten years ago. In TIDES’s 2004 report, the NFL only received a B in this same category. Moreover, in terms of diversity initiatives, the NFL received an A+, which runs counter to the idea that the Rooney Rule and other policies implemented have not worked. The NFL also received A’s for the racial hiring practices for assistant coaches and members of the league office as well as an A- for general managers and team professional administrators. However, the league could’ve graded better in the head coach department, where they only received a B+. But if you compare the 19% of minority head coaches in the NFL to the percentage of black people in the US (13%), even this figure is not as alarming as people say.
In the NBA, things are even better. The league received the only A+ for racial hiring practices in men’s professional sports. In particular, the NBA received an A+ for the hiring practices of members in the league office, head coaches, assistant coaches, and professional administration at the team level. Their report wasn’t perfect though: the NBA only received a B+ for team vice presidents and a B for general managers. Yet keep in mind that a B indicates that the percentage of minorities in these positions is merely in accord with societal workplace trends rather than beyond what is expected. Overall, the NBA has consistently received A’s for its racial hiring practices dating back to the TIDES first report in 2004, and they once again received an A+ for diversity initiatives.
As for MLB, they received an A for racial hiring practices as well. However, while MLB received exceptional grades for hiring practices in the league office, organizational level, and for assistant coaches, one thing that stood out was that they only received a C+ for manager hiring practices. This lends validity to the claim that MLB does have a diversity issue in this area. That’s certainly a problem, but if you consider the fact that only roughly 8% of MLB players are African-American, then the percentage of managers, technically, is right in line with what you would expect based on the ratio of black players. In short, if less black people play baseball, might that explain why there are less black managers?
All of this isn’t to say that there still aren’t concerns regarding diversity in each of these leagues. As Sando noted, 68.7% of the NFL is made up of black players yet whites hold a staggeringly high amount of offensive coordinator positions, which perpetuates the idea that white people are more apt to call plays and make key decisions. The NBA is also a predominantly black league who has seen its number of black coaches and general managers decline slightly in recent years. And in MLB, there were only three minority managers at the beginning of the 2016 season (Atlanta’s Fredi Gonzalez was fired midseason). Compare that figure to the high of ten minority managers seen in 2009 as well as the increasing number of black players in the minor leagues (for instance, nine African-American players were drafted in this year’s first round) and it’s clear that MLB, more so than the NFL and NBA, has work to do.
With that said, it’s clear based on the overall grades received by each of these three leagues in relation to societal workplace trends that there is not nearly as big of a diversity problem in professional sports as the media purports.
The two entities where people should really be targeting their negative backlash are at the NCAA and MLS. Listen to these figures from TIDES latest report on the NCAA from 2015: In men’s athletics, 87.1% of Division I, 88.8% of Division II, and 91.6% of Division III coaches were white. Similarly, 85.7% of Division I, 88.4% of Division II, and 91.3% of Division III coaches in women’s athletics were white as well. Moreover, 91% of all athletic directors across the three divisions were white, as were twenty-nine of the thirty conference commissioners. Taken together, it’s surprising that TIDES even gave the NCAA a B for racial hiring practices given how lopsided these figures are in relation to current US demographic estimates.
These figures haven’t improved, either. In 2005, the NCAA received just a B- in racial hiring practices and noted that “opportunities for minority candidates outside of Division I men’s basketball remained poor.” Surprisingly, the percentage of minority coaches in DI men’s basketball has declined over the past couple of years, even as the overwhelming majority of coaching, athletic director, and commissioner positions still belong to white men. Given how strict the NCAA has been on even the most minor of recruiting violations, it’s unacceptable that the NCAA can’t successfully promote more diversity in college sports.
As for the MLS, they managed to receive a B+ for overall racial hiring practices. But that grade is deceptive because it is skewed by the fact that the league office received an A+ for its hiring practices. At the general manager and coaching positions, the league received an F and a C+ respectively. Those figures pale in comparison to the marks given to the NFL, NBA, and, to a lesser extent, MLB.
To reiterate a point I made earlier, I’m not suggesting that there aren’t issues regarding diversity that don’t need to be fixed in each of the professional sports leagues. These leagues, which are male-dominated by nature, don’t necessarily have to match the racial and gender hiring process grades received by the WNBA, but they absolutely should be scrutinized and expected to meet, and perhaps even surpass, societal workplace trends.
With that said, the criticism levied against the NFL, NBA, and MLB in recent weeks has been unfair given what I learned about where these leagues truly stand regarding their racial hiring practices and diversity initiatives. Frankly, based on the demographics of the U.S, much of the criticism just hasn’t been well thought out. Shouldn’t people think a little about the information they are processing before jumping to conclusions based on anecdotal stories or figures they see on Sportscenter and First Take comparing the number of white and black coaches, for instance?
Simply put, there are statistical realities that must be acknowledged that aren’t prejudiced. Discussions regarding diversity are certainly warranted, but in this case it has been a little overblown. Ultimately, it makes me wonder if most of this controversy is simply generated by the media to keep people interested during the summer months where not much is going on in the sports world.
Dungy photo courtesy of Associated Press
