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Exit Discrimination in the NFL: A Duration Analysis of Career Length

  • Published:
The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

Exit discrimination is defined as the involuntary termination of employment due to racial characteristics holding productivity constant. We test for exit discrimination in the National Football League (NFL) using a panel study on career length. Our analysis focuses on six positional groups: defensive backs, defensive linemen, linebackers, running backs, tight ends and wide receivers. In our analysis, in addition to race, we include performance variables to determine their importance in determining career length. Using both parametric and semi-parametric hazard models, we find no evidence of exit discrimination in the NFL.

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Notes

  1. Although Gius and Johnson (2000) find a ten percent wage premium for black NFL players their specifications do not include any performance variables suggesting that the race variable is capturing the impact of performance.

  2. Due to the potential for injury and health related issues some of the exit in the NFL might be employee initiated particularly with running backs such as Rashard Mendenhall, Tiki Barber, Ray Lewis and Barry Sanders. To address this concern we perform our survival analysis by analyzing a varying subset of players including those who earn the mean wage and below, one million and below, and five hundred thousand and below. We find that all specifications are essentially the same as the full specification. In all specifications, we find that performance lowers the likelihood of exit and that race has no influence on exit.

  3. Our data are right truncated to provide the ability to use parametric survival analysis. Players are excluded if they play for more than one team during a season. Players are also excluded from the sample if a season is missing or skipped in the USA Today’s NFL salary database (content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/football/nfl/salaries/team) or if their salary is not available in this database.

  4. In additional specifications weight, weight squared, and height were included. Weight and height both were found to be insignificant while weight squared was found to increase career length suggesting that player BMI might best capture the influence of height and weight on career length.

  5. For a discussion on frailty see Bodenhorn et al. (2012) and Price et al. (2008).

  6. For technical details of semi-parametric hazard model see Berger and Black (1998).

  7. When higher order polynomials of the fifth and sixth power are included results do not change suggesting that a fourth order polynomial is flexible enough to capture the influence of the baseline hazard. When using dummy variables we find that the results are the same as when using the Taylor series approximation, using tenure through the fourth power.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina A & T State University, Greensboro, NC, USA

    Johnny Ducking

  2. Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA

    Peter A. Groothuis

  3. Central Michigan University, Mt Pleasant, MI, USA

    James Richard Hill

Authors
  1. Johnny Ducking
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  2. Peter A. Groothuis
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  3. James Richard Hill
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Correspondence to Johnny Ducking.

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Ducking, J., Groothuis, P.A. & Hill, J.R. Exit Discrimination in the NFL: A Duration Analysis of Career Length. Rev Black Polit Econ 42, 285–299 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-014-9207-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-014-9207-9

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