Last month, former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Brian Flores, filed a lawsuit against the NFL and three NFL teams for discrimination. More specifically, when interviewing for the job of head coach of the New York Giants, Flores faced “racial injustice” during the hiring process. While Flores had an interview scheduled with the general manager on January 27th, on January 19th he received text messages from Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. An article on espn.com describes the incident:
In those texts, Belichick told Flores he had heard from "Buffalo and NYG that you are their guy."Flores asked Belichick to clarify whether he meant to talk to him or Brian Daboll, who was also in the running for the Giants' job. Belichick acknowledged his error and informed him that the Giants wanted Daboll. "Sorry -- I f---ed this up. I double checked and misread the text. I think they are naming Brian Daboll. I'm sorry about that," Belichick allegedly texted… New York hired Daboll, the former Bills offensive coordinator, a day later.
Interviewing Flores for the position satisfies the Rooney rule, a rule implemented by the NFL in 2003 that states at least one person of color needs to be interviewed for all head coaching and senior operation positions. Flores believed that the Giants already knew that they wanted to hire Daboll and only interviewed Flores to check off a box.
This discriminatory practice is extremely disrespectful and is a reflection of how Black athletes and employees are treated in the NFL. Football in the US is largely made up of Black athletes who put in the work on a daily basis and risk their physical health to make money for those higher up in power. Black employees are also often tokenized just so the NFL can claim they are expanding to include more diverse employees. Flores’ lawsuit explains it even clearer: “‘Its 32 owners—none of whom are Black—profit substantially from the labor of NFL players, 70% of whom are Black. The owners watch the games from atop NFL stadiums in their luxury boxes, while their majority-Black workforce put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking vicious hits and suffering debilitating injuries to their bodies and their brains while the NFL and its owners reap billions of dollars’”.
This incident is rare in the fact that the Giants accidentally admitted to their unfair practices. There are likely many more cases of this happening that go undocumented. Tokenism runs rampant in the NFL due to it being a systematically racist institution by default. Changes from the NFL need to happen to ensure this kind of unfair practices are not continued and the world of football properly values the people that have contributed so much to the success of the organization.
How sloppy. Well, hopefully their slip-up leads to some positive changes in the hiring guidelines that actually make a difference for people of color in the industry. You can't just hand a team over to a new black owner, but it would be amazing if there could be a player-owned policy introduced like the employee-owned incentives business have gained recently. A sole owner could give up 51% ownership to the players and get huge tax benefits while giving real power to the players. I would like to see the players benefiting more for the life-long brain trauma they must endure to play the sport they love.
The year is 2022, the fact that racism has still not been eradicated from our daily lives - let alone from the public sector of athletics. As said by someone else in the comment section, the hard work is being done on the field and players should get more recognition as such.
This is a really important issue, and it is especially devastating to read about. Tokenizing black athletes in this way, strips the athletes of their agency, making them pawns for capital gain by filthy rich team owners. The quote from Flores that you included truly puts it best. "The owners watch the games from atop NFL stadiums in their luxury boxes, while their majority-Black workforce put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking vicious hits and suffering debilitating injuries to their bodies and their brains while the NFL and its owners reap billions of dollars." Obviously there must be a change, but what change can be implemented? I'm not knowledgeable on sports topics, but I would be curious to…
It is horrible how these practices still happen all the time in every industry. This is such blatant discrimination and racism, it is so hard to read. There needs to be more equal representation especially since--like you said--majority of the athletes are Black and all the people representing them are White. It is just another example of a historically racist industry that is doing nothing to change their practices.
Coming from a place of little knowledge regarding the sports industry, one thing I do know is that Black athletes contribute so much to both the industry and the lives of all their fans, The fact that discrimination at this level still occurs today is mind boggling. It is clear even to someone who isn't heavily invested in the NFL, like me, that the hard work does not take place in the owner's box; it takes place on the field and sidelines where the actual labor is being produced. Thanks for shedding light on this specific issue.