America Is Abandoning DEI. The NFL Remains All-In.

In 2020, as protests over racial inequities and police brutality swept across the country, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell ordered the league to embark on an all-out blitz in support of social-justice issues.

“End Racism” was stenciled into the back of end zones. A song known as the Black national anthem was played before games. The league committed hundreds of millions of dollars to back equality initiatives.

But five years later, as the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off in Sunday’s Super Bowl, the NFL finds itself in a very different position. Even as the rest of America is running away from diversity efforts, America’s most popular sport is digging in.

Newly re-elected President Trump, who plans to attend Sunday’s game, has quickly moved to unravel diversity, equity and inclusion plans in the federal government. Fortune 500 companies have taken steps to roll back their own diversity practices. Firms that haven’t followed suit have faced criticism from activists and agitators.

At the same time, the NFL has come under fire over accusations that its own diversity practices aren’t tough enough. {snip}

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Unlike many business leaders, though, Goodell wasn’t shy this week about taking a clear stance on the issue—even if it’s one that won’t find favor among many of the 100 million viewers who tune in for the Super Bowl. He firmly stood by the NFL’s diversity initiatives and said they won’t change just because the political climate has shifted, adding that they’re both positive for the league and a “reflection of our fan base and our communities and our players.”

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That attitude, people familiar with the matter say, is shared by NFL owners, who have pushed for the league to stick with its policies—even though many of them have publicly supported Trump. They point out that the league has never had hiring quotas, but has stuck by the idea that the NFL is at its best when its teams select from a wide array of candidates.

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Still, the NFL has traditionally been sensitive to the way that the cultural winds are blowing. It also knows better than any other league how Trump can weaponize politics against a sport.

During Trump’s first term, he assailed player protests against racial injustice as unpatriotic and decried the NFL and its owners for allowing them to persist. When the league allowed them to continue, it placed America’s most popular sport in a direct feud with the sitting president.

{snip} In the months after the 2017 season, the NFL implemented a policy allowing teams to punish players for protesting. {snip}

Just a few years later, cultural trends shifted once more. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, racial inequality became a flashpoint. Once again, the NFL pivoted. Goodell endorsed the idea that players had a right to peaceful protest and the league put even more weight behind a host of initiatives meant to amplify the causes that mattered most to players and the pipeline of diverse candidates for high-profile jobs.

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