Overall the NFL gets a letter grade of A+ for players’ race, but an F- for kickers and punters
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida produces regular “racial and gender report cards” for professional sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, and WNBA, for Associated Press sports editors and writers, and even for Super Bowl ads.
In its most recent report on the NFL (“2016 Racial and Gender Report Card: National Football League” — the 2017 report should be available in late September) TIDES determined that the NFL deserved a letter grade of A+ for Players’ Race because of an overall score of 72.6%, which represents the percentage of non-white NFL players: 69.7% black, 0.8% Latinos, 1.9% Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 0.2% “other.” In its written assessment of NFL Players’ Race, TIDES commented that the during the NFL’s 2016 season, “the percent of African-American players increased from 69.2 percent in the 2015 season to 69.7 percent in 2016. The percent of white players decreased from 27.9 percent in 2015 to 27.4 percent in 2016.” Given the fact that the letter grade for race is based on the percentage of non-white players, it was considered favorably by TIDES that the percentage of black NFL players increased at the same time that the percentage of white NFL players decreased in the 2016 season.
But if TIDES evaluated the race of NFL players by position, things wouldn’t look so good (non-white) for the NFL. For example, an analysis of the new updated ESPN database of NFL players for the 2017 season by position for place kickers and punters reveals the following:
1. Of the 44 place kickers on 2017 NFL rosters, 43 are white, none are black and only one is Hispanic (Roberto Aguayo of the Chicago Bears).
2. Of the 41 punters on 2017 NFL rosters, only two are black (Marquette King of the Oakland Raiders and Corey Carter of the Houston Texans).
According to the TIDES grading scale, a letter grade of A+ is assigned when “players of color” represent more than 30% of all players in a sport, and a letter grade of F is assigned when “players of color” are less than 11% of the total. Therefore, for those two key positions the NFL earns a failing letter grade of F- for its lack of racial diversity for kickers and punters — 96.5% of NFL kickers and punters are white, only 2.4% are black and only 1.2% are Hispanic. Since only 3.6% of NFL kickers and punters are “players of color,” the NFL has a really long way to go before it meets TIDES criteria for being a “diverse and inclusive organization” for those two key positions.
If that seems absurd to grade NFL players for race by position, isn’t the whole concept of grading the NFL for the race of its players equally absurd? Especially given TIDES’ apparent grading criteria: Only black players really matter. That is, the NFL’s A+ letter grade for race is based on the facts that: a) black players are way over-represented in the NFL relative to their share of the US population (13%), and b) white, Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islanders are all way under-represented in the NFL relative to their shares of the US population (63%, 17%, and 5% respectively). That’s why the NFL gets an A+ from TIDES for race. That’s a pretty crazy, childish, and offensive grading scheme if you ask me….
Q: When will TIDES grade the National Hockey League on its complete lack of diversity and inclusivity when it comes to “hockey players of color”? After all, TIDES evaluates all other major professional sports leagues: NBA, NFL, MLB, WNBA, and MLS, so where’s the NHL report? I’d have to give TIDES a letter grade of F for its lack of diversity and inclusivity by excluding one of the most popular US sports — professional hockey and the NHL, which has much greater annual attendance (21.5 million) than the NFL (less than 18 million), almost as much as the NBA (21.9 million), and far more than the WNBA (1.5 million) or MLS (about 7 million).
I suspect TIDES has to intentionally ignore the NHL because it couldn’t maintain its facade of respectability if it reported on a well-respected major professional sport that is growing in popularity and gave it letter grades of F in almost every category (players, head coaches, assistant coaches, owners, management, administration, diversity initiatives, league office, etc.). Likewise, an analysis of “players of color” by NFL position would expose the silliness of TIDES’ “racial bean-counting” of professional athletes.
Bottom Line: Isn’t professional sports probably the most color-blind, performance-based, meritocracy in American society? Exhibit A: 81% of the NFL players are black, 69% of both the NFL and WNBA players are 69% black, and 32% of MLB players are Latino. In that case, is there really any value for an organization at a public university to engage in an annual racial “bean-counting” and grading exercise that just confirms what we already know: that blacks excel in professional sports like basketball and football and Latinos excel in baseball?
Don’t we also know that to whatever extent racism exists in other parts of society (and existed in professional sports many generations ago), it’s almost non-existent in the meritocracy of modern professional sports? Do we really need annual “race and gender report cards” from a taxpayer-supported public university that tells us what we already know? I think not. But if they continue with these senseless reports, I’d like to see the NHL evaluated for “race and gender” by TIDES and I’d also like to see the TIDES analysis of the NFL, MLB, and NBA extended to evaluate and grade each position for “players of color.” According to TIDES, the NFL would get a failing grade for the kicker and punter positions and would obviously need some diversity initiatives to increase the percentage of kickers and punters to improve its grade from F-! And MLB would get an F- for the position of catcher — there’s not a single African-American player at the position of catcher on any MLB team in the 2017 season!
Bonus Venn Diagram below.
