Black on white – Sport – Kommersant

The National Hockey League (NHL) conducted a study that found that the strongest hockey championship suffers from a lack of racial diversity. It turned out that almost 85% of the staff of the NHL teams belong to the Caucasian race. And 62% of them are men. The NHL has already promised to make every effort to rectify the situation. It is worth noting, however, that last year even the National Basketball Association (NBA) complained about the lack of representation of blacks in sports, despite the fact that three-quarters of the players in it are representatives of the black race.

NHL made public the results of a curious study, the first of its kind in league history. Its purpose was to clarify the gender and racial makeup of the NHL. The survey was conducted among employees of all 32 league teams. A total of 4,200 people filled out the questionnaire (it is claimed that everything was voluntary and anonymous).

As a result, it is documented that the NHL remains a predominantly white and male league. According to the survey, 83.6% of team members are white, and approximately 67% are men.

Team staff data is consistent with how races are represented among NHL players: more than 90% of them, as well as almost all club head coaches, are Caucasian.

The goal of the survey, as explained by NHL vice president of social relations, development and legal affairs Kim Davis, is to establish facts that will help understand who, where and when clubs should hire.

“This is a good start, but we still have a long way to go,” said Ms. Davies. The head of the NHL, Gary Bettman, in turn, noted that the report will affect the policy of the league for years to come.

At the same time, Ms. Davis made it clear that, despite the steps taken by the NHL to achieve racial diversity, the league is facing difficulties. She explained this by the fact that among the black population there are not enough hockey fans. In this, however, according to her, the NHL is also to blame, which does not promote hockey in areas inhabited by blacks.

It is noteworthy, however, that black rights advocates in the United States find signs of racism not only in the truly predominantly white NHL, but even in the NBA, where up to 75% of the players, including almost all the main stars, are black. However, according to a study by The Ohio University (data released in September last year), black basketball players are discriminated against here as well.

The researchers decided to choose a very specific segment for their work, namely bench players (inclusion of starting fives in the circle of basketball players under study would show exactly the total superiority of blacks over whites). The authors of the study included basketball players who spend on the court on average less than 20 minutes per game as bench players (data were taken into account for a long period – from 1979 to 2017). And they found that the careers of black players in this category are, on average, significantly shorter than those of their white teammates. Davon Norris, who led the study, said that although the NBA is the last place where it would seem that signs of racism can be found, it turns out that it is still more profitable to be white in the league.

The authors of the study also tried to explain why white players’ careers last longer. According to Cory Moss-Pech, a researcher, the thing is that white players are able to, let’s say, make friends and communicate with others off the court. And this ability to “be good friends”, in turn, is converted into a good attitude from the club management and new contracts.

Alexander Petrov