NEW ORLEANS — The NFL’s dedicated push to add diversity in all levels of America’s most popular sport will continue.
That was the message delivered by commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday during his annual state of the league address to kick off Super Bowl week — declining to follow in the footsteps of some major U.S. corporations stripping away diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from their business models.
It’s a notable decision by the NFL, given the league’s extremely strong public profile and the recent trends opposing DEI initiatives in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election to the White House. The NFL has supported a host of diversity initiatives throughout its structure, most notably including the league’s long-debated “Rooney Rule”, which mandates the interviewing of minority candidates during the hiring process of high-ranking coaches and executives.
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League,” Goodell said on Monday. “And we’re going to continue towards that, because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, I think we’ve proven ourselves that it does make the NFL better.”
“We’re not in this because it’s a trend to get into or a trend to get out of it,” Goodell continued. “Our efforts are fundamental in trying to attract the best possible talent into the National Football League both on and off the field, as I’ve said previously. We see that. We see how it’s benefitted in the National Football League. I think we’ll continue those efforts. I think it’s also clearly a reflection of our fan base and our communities and our players.”
At times, the league’s efforts to promote diversity within its ranks have been met with applause — even as the both Rooney Rule and newsroom diversity came come under fire in lawsuits from Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores and former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter. (Trotter’s suit has since been settled.) But the league has in many instances been seen as a forward-thinking operator inside the broader corporate spectrum in America.
However, the landscape to hunt for greater diversity has gone in varied directions since Trump’s first presidential term, with the latest turn seeing number of large corporations in the country begin to pull back from DEI efforts. In varied ways, recognizable names like Meta, Amazon, Walmart, Lowe’s, Boeing, McDonalds, Ford Motor Company, John Deere, Harley-Davidson and others shuttered or ended different initiatives that were intended to support DEI.
The change in that landscape notably escalated after Trump secured his latest presidential term. In his inauguration address, Trump vowed to eliminate aspects of DEI initiatives from the federal government. He then followed through on that promise immediately; one of his first executive orders on his first day back in the Oval Office was titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Prereferencing.” The order directs federal agencies to, among many things, decline considering diversity in hiring practices and eliminate DEI training practices.
That political and corporate landscape left many looking at the NFL to see where it would ultimately stand in its own diversity measures, many of which have been held to a very critical standard in the media when it comes to the diversity amongst head coaches and executives across the league. That microscope has more recently started to focus on the lack of diverse team owners across the league as well.
But Goodell suggested Monday that the NFL wouldn’t change its efforts — a stance that is also notable because the NFL had a very heated head-on collision with Trump’s previous administration over anthem-kneeling. That tit-for-tat with Trump left many NFL owners pushing hard for the league to exit the political landscape, leading to some speculation in league circles that the NFL would likely acquiesce to Trump’s DEI stance and change some of its own policies.
For now, it sounds like that won’t happen.
“Our owners participate in everything we do,” Goodell said. “Our policies have been designed to be well within the law, well within the practice. There are no quotas in system. This is about opening that funnel and bringing the best talent into the NFL. We’re confident of that. We’ve talked to the diversity committee several times in the last six months or so and we’re incredibly confident there. But we also believe in doing the right thing for the NFL. Our policies are consistent with current administration and also the last administration.”
“The Rooney Rule … there’s no requirement to hire a particular individual on the basis of race and gender,” Goodell said. “It’s simply on the basis of looking at a canvas of candidates that reflect our communities, to look at the kind of talent that exists there, and then you make the best decision on who to hire. So many of us, including the National Football League, our office, are doing it voluntarily at all levels because it has benefitted us. I hear that from companies on a global basis. That’s a very strong hiring practice we are adopting also.”
Asked if the NFL would take a stance on sponsors who have eliminated their own DEI initiatives, Goodell responded: “We don’t make policies for our sponsors or any of the corporations or networks or partners that we deal with. We’ve have a lot of conversations about the importance of [diversity] to us.”
