Football and Discrimination

Nancy J. Burnett, UW-OshkoshLee Van Scyoc, UW –Oshkosh

Discrimination and Sports

• Previous Work: – Baseball and Salary or Memorabilia • Black League

– Coaching in Football• Regulation Shift: Rooney Rule, 2002

– Football and Salary?

Players Status and Salary Offers

• Rookie– Accept Offer or Sit at Home (unpaid)!

• Restricted Free Agent– Play 3+ seasons and expired contract, received

qualifying offers from old club and can negotiate until 1 week before NFL Draft (revert to original club). If accept new offer, old club right to match and retain.

• UnRestricted Free Agent– 4 or more seasons and expired contract. Free to sign

with any club.

Position?

• Need variability by race– QB? Running Backs? – Linebackers• About 75% Non-White• Ongoing need for this position, each team has several

players in this position• Several quality players in draft every year

1st Round Linebacker Draft Picks

NFL Draft Year Name Draft #

2009 Aaron Curry 4

2008 Vernon Gholston 6

2007 Patrick Willis 11

2006 A.J. Hawk 5

2005 DeMarcus Ware 11

2004 Jonathan Vilma 12

2003 Terrell Suggs 10

2002 Napoleon Harris 23

2001 Dan Morgan 11

2000 LaVarr Arrington 2

2000 Brian Urlacher 9

Salary and Rookie Linebackers

• Will vary by year – Rookie Salary Cap (JeMarcus Russell Rule) in the

Collective Bargaining Agreement of July 25, 2011• Will vary by quality and need– Teams ongoing need for linebackers means likely

to draft quality linebacker even if not a team’s priority position ~ reflected in draft pick number

– Quality, as determined by scouts and college record, should affect draft pick number

But, What Salary?

• Salary?• Cap Value of Salary?• Base Salary?• Bonus?

»Salary (robust to Bonus)

Data

• 2000-2009• 377 Linebacker Rookies– Race (Blk), Year, Draft Number• If undrafted, Undraft=1 and Draft Number=0

VariableSalary Blk(0,1) Draft Number

(0-260)Undraft (0,1) Year(200x)

(0-9)Mean 655,538 .7533 69.58 .3581 4.172

(stdev) 762,402 75.64 2.720

Salary and Draft (Quality) by Race

LN(Salary) and Draft by race

OLS ResultsY=LN(Salary) Coefficient

(t-stat)Intercept 14.2396

(158.01)**Blk -.04423

(-.73)Draft Number -.01036

(-21.86)**Undraft -2.6146

(-23.34)**Year .0634

(5.33)**Year*Undraft .06571

(3.28)**R2 74.4

F 215.54

Conclusions?

• Negative Sign but NO significance on race variable

• Sign robust to specification of Salary (bonus, cap, etc)

• NFL has been sensitive to issues of race, so maybe this is not a surprise.