Can we put a “statistical face” on inequity?

Racial equity is an issue that has long stared into the face of sport. Like many parts of American society, big decision makers have been slow to take action-oriented plans, not solely to embrace diversity but also to proactively address disparity in many of its dimensions including race, gender and other forms of identity. In large part, sports institutions and those who work within them are facing historic and systemic barriers, so the simple act of determining where to start is a difficult task.

Undeniably, George Floyd’s death had a profound global impact during the summer of 2020 and into 2021. It will forever mark a significant shift for many, including those within the world of sport. We witnessed a number of athletes, brands, teams and governing bodies decry racism and violence at varying degrees of commitment and action. Some were expected, some were called upon, and many if not all were heavily scrutinized.

Perhaps one of the most unanticipated official statements came from the NFL and its commissioner, Roger Goodell, who spoke the words “Black lives matter.”

In February 2021 and during the months after these statements were made, the Global Sport Institute dug even deeper into exactly what kind of progress a large sports league like the NFL had achieved, using the context of how many people of Color were represented in leadership positions on the fi eld. Unique to the NFL? The well-known Rooney Rule, the intent of which was to fi ll in the racial gaps.

In response to statements like Goodell’s, Global Sport Institute senior visiting practitioner William C. Rhoden said pointedly, “We want deeds. We don’t want any more words.” “How do you change people’s hearts?” he asked. “That’s the challenge of 2021.”

In 2021, another NFL hiring cycle came and went in which just two of the seven coaches hired were non-White. Meanwhile in the NBA, Becky Hammon, a woman who coaches for the San Antonio Spurs, was passed over yet again for a head coach job. The hiring patterns clearly illustrated by our Field Studies data largely continued.

Yet alongside the increased willingness to address institutional racism in the U.S., there were also notable exceptions to these trends. Nina King, a Black woman, was hired as Duke’s next athletic director, punctuating gains by Black women in Power Five athletic director roles in recent years. Although there were no changes in gender-based hiring in the NBA, seven of eight head coach vacancies were filled by Black men.

Outside the leadership sphere, conversations around race and sport broadened. MLB moved its All-Star game from Georgia in response to recently-passed voting bills, while athlete protests continued at the Olympics as attention turned toward Rule 50 and its ban against athlete demonstrations. The Tokyo Olympic Games provided new context for some of the earliest content released by the Global Sport Institute, specifically our package on the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Mexico City Games.

The 1968 Olympic Games are remembered as the birthplace of Olympic activism, with athletes like John Carlos and Wyomia Tyus, who joined us on a trip back to Estadio Olimpico Universitario in 2018 to commemorate their protest on behalf of civil rights for Black Americans. The engagements and conversations we held, inspired by those events, lent even more historical context to more recent demonstrations in Tokyo from Black women like Gwen Berry and Raven Saunders.

In addition to our Field Studies, our National Snapshot Poll became a new instrument to uncover the public’s relationship with our sport systems. As Global Sport scholar Andrés Martinez said in a GSM Live conversation, “We talk a lot about how sport is a microcosm of society . . . it’s also a magnifier.” With each of the polls conducted we were able to measure where individuals stood as sport intersected with issues like politics, diversity and emerging legislation.

Time and again, these topics have gone unchecked and unexamined. The Global Sport Institute continues to provide relevant data and research-based insights, collected at the root of an issue, in order to help decision-makers make steps toward progress.

The Rooney Rule

Adopted in 2003, the Rooney Rule is an NFL policy requiring every team with a head coaching vacancy to interview one or more diverse candidates. In 2009, the Rooney Rule was expanded to include general manager jobs and equivalent front offi ce positions. The Rooney Rule is named after the late former Pittsburgh Steelers owner and chairman of the league’s diversity committee, Dan Rooney. (Source: nfl communications.com)