Race and Coaching Hierarchy: Promotions and Firings of NFL Coaches

Alex Farnell, David Berri, Vincent O’Sullivan and Robert Simmons
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David Berri: Southern Utah University
Vincent O’Sullivan: University of Limerick
Robert Simmons: Lancaster University

Economics Department Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth

Abstract: The National Football League (NFL) has long been criticised for its lack of minority leadership. Fewer than 25% of the league’s players are white. But at the start of the 2024 season, more than 80% of head coaches were white. Past studies into this issue tended to focus on the labour market for head coaches. Instead, we consider the entire pipeline of coaches up to the role of head coach, spanning 1989-2020. We find that race is not a significant explanatory variable in explaining promotions to head coach. We do, however, identify race as a barrier to promotions from certain position coach roles. Thus, the league’s affirmative action policy, the Rooney Rule, might not be attempting to correct for discriminatory hiring at the correct level. Classification-J71, Z21, Z22

Keywords: racial discrimination; NFL; coaches (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 Pages
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-spo
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