Most NFL teams have begun making moves in their offseason and the latest head coach hires have made progress towards the league’s ongoing efforts to encourage diversity in leadership roles. According to the Associated Press, “four minority head coaches have been hired this year — Atlanta’s Raheem Morris, New England’s Jerod Mayo, Las Vegas’ Antonio Pierce and Carolina’s Dave Canales — bringing the number of coaches of color entering the 2024 season to nine, the most in league history.” Two teams, Seattle and Washington, are still in the search for a new head coach.
A recent study published in the journal American Journal of Sociology examined racial disparity in NFL coaches’ promotions. The study documents racial disparity in promotions from lower-level positions, like a position coach, to the coordinator level – the position typically held prior to becoming a head coach.
James Wade is the inaugural Avram Tucker Professor of Strategy and Leadership at the George Washington University School of Business. Wade’s areas of expertise includes strategic management, corporate governance, and industry evolution. Wade co-authored this research, titled “Racial Disparity In Leadership: Evidence of Valuative Bias In The Promotions of National Football League Coaches,” alongside colleagues Christopher Rider at the University of Michigan, Anand Swaminathan at Emory University, and Andreas Schwab at Iowa State University.
In the study, the authors analyzed all franchise NFL career data for three decades, from 1985 to 2015. Among the study’s key findings, the researchers found a nearly 2x white coach advantage in promotions to a coordinator position, but no racial disparity in the promotion to head coach conditional on attaining a coordinator position.
The study also discovered that white coaches advance faster from low-level positions than observationally equivalent Black coaches do. This holds true both before and after the Rooney Rule’s implementation. The Rooney Rule stipulates that at least one minority coach must be interviewed for each open head coach position. The authors attribute the disparity in representation at the head coach level to the differences in promotions from lower-level positions (i.e., those not governed by the Rooney Rule).
“Our study implies that closing the gap at the top (i.e., head coaches) necessitates addressing disparity at the bottom of coaching staffs (e.g., assistant coaches),” Wade has said. “Recent changes to apply the Rooney Rule to coordinator vacancies are consistent with this insight, but our study implies even greater gains to applying the Rooney Rule to the lower-level positions in which most coaches start their careers.”
If you would like to speak with Prof. Wade, please contact GW Senior Media Relations Specialist Cate Douglass at [email protected].
-GW-
