No one would be shocked to learn that the NFL front office is a man’s world, given the game is played by only men at the professional level as we speak. However, the league is looking to include more women in executive and front office positions at the head office and throughout the league.
In fact, reports from the Guardian indicate the league is looking in to extending is “Rooney Rule” to include gender as well as race in the future. The idea would be to require all NFL teams to interview at least one woman candidate for certain positions within the organization, although exact details aren’t worked out at this point.
This was an idea that commissioner Roger Goodell even brought up back in February.
Apparently, the idea for this extension came after some of the league’s top executives attended a women’s career development symposium.
“It only made sense to extend the rule to include gender diversity for league office executive positions,” said Robert Gulliver, the NFL’s chief human resources officer. “If you think outside the NFL, a lot of major organizations have announced in the last year similar efforts to extend something like the Rooney rule. Here’s an opportunity for clubs to adopt this as a best practice, and we are excited about the opportunity to have some more thoughtful dialogue with the clubs.”
For its part, the league front office has put women in to plenty of positions of power in the past and present. There is NFL senior vice-president Renie Anderson, chief football operations strategy officer Kimberly Fields and chief marketing officer Dawn Hudson at its headquarters.
Women as team executives include Dawn Aponte in Miami, Jeanne Bonk in San Diego, Allison Maki in Detroit and Katie Blackburn in Cincinnati.
All of them were part of the symposium, while others at the symposium included women from Ivy League business schools as well.
“Things change, the NFL has changed,” said Blackburn. “The opportunities for women available at a team, there are more areas I would say, such as the marketing department, or in the growth of IT, all of these areas that are important to a football team. A symposium like this is just an opportunity to encourage them and see if there are areas they feel we can assist them.”
The goal appears to make a career in the front office of NFL teams as commonplace as any other business executive job for women. While playing the game professionally may not be feasible at this point, taking part in the game in other ways is more and more viable for women today.