Differences in the Success of NFL Coaches by Race, 1990-2002

Janice Fanning Madden

Journal of Sports Economics, 2004, vol. 5, issue 1, 6-19

Abstract: Although there have been numerous analyses of racial discrimination in professional sports, none have analyzed football coaching. Analyses of the regular season win records, and of making the playoffs, for National Football League (NFL) teams coached by both African Americans and Whites between 1990 and 2002 show that African American coaches were more successful. The analyses make racial comparisons for overall season records, records in the first year, and records in the year of an involuntary departure for the coach. There is evidence that teams that hire African American coaches are better than those that hire White coaches. Analyses that consider team quality effects also find significantly better performance by African Americans. African American coaches have been insignificantly less successful in the playoffs, however. Overall, the results are consistent with African American coaches being held to higher standards to get their jobs in the NFL.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002503257245 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:5:y:2004:i:1:p:6-19

DOI: 10.1177/1527002503257245

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Sports Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().