Our SiriusXM Sports Business Radio show begins the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I have been fortunate enough to spend much of my professional life focused on issues related to race...these days diversity...and sports. So this start date makes the issue a natural first show topic.
I would not begin to think that I know what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would dream for in sports achievement beyond the field of play. But what he would see is that corrective steps were taken by the NFL to prevent another hiring season where no African Americans get coaching or general manager jobs. The hiring of Lovie Smith and Jim Caldwell sounded that there was not a complete reversion back to the pre Rooney Rule days.
There is, however, a dearth of success at the very top. This is a visual anyone gets at the top of every one of the big four sports leagues. Look to the left and right of the always white male commissioner. This is not unusual. The place where I have worked daily for the past 28 years, the University of Pennsylvania, currently has a white female in that center power space with a dearth of faces of color inside of the university's power vortex. That story repeats itself in and out of sports, with few exceptions. In that sense the sports industry is not special. It is neither a leader nor outlier.
So, the Wharton Sports Business Show that I am co-hosting with Professor Scott Rosner, begins on Tuesday. This weekly look into the sports industry features live guests, callers and analysis and commentary and can be found on the newly launched SiriusXM Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School - Channel 111 - on Tuesdays from 4 to 5pm ET. Most of the shows, even this first one, will focus on business, economic and legal issues. However, appropriately, one of the guests on this inaugural show will be Professor N. Jeremi Duru of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, the architects of the Rooney Rule. He will talk with us about Dr. King's dream and our progress in sports. He is the author of the best book written on the Rooney Rule and how it came to be, Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in NFL.
In sports and elsewhere there has been much progress, but there remains so much more to do. In whatever way one celebrates King Day all should take a moment to reflect on the tremendous progress that has been made. However, I've been seeing and using a James Baldwin quote a lot lately, and I find it appropriate to use again here as so many institutions will proclaim a commitment to diversity and success beyond their reality. "I can't believe what you say because I see what you do."
Please join us for the launch on Tuesday.
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