The History & Future of Women in The NFL

Piece by: Kyle Sramek

Football has long been a sport designed by men, owned by men, managed by men, coached by men, and played by men. The majority of its fans in the beginning also happen to be men, so it was designed for their entertainment. This naturally violent sport has gone through some changes to its rules to improve its profitability as well as safety for its players.

Penalties for hitting a defenseless player, tackling players while leading with the crown of the helmet, and violations for taunting the other team or players are just a few of the changes made in the past two decades. Traditional fans are not a fan of these alterations as they love to see hard hitting play and think the new game is a watered down version of football. Well, they can complain all they want. The NFL is first and foremost a business that makes massive profits and would like to see that continue forever.

New demographics have also begun to take an interest in the league as a result of these changes. One major one is the enjoyment and role of women in the sport recently. They account for nearly half of all league fans at this point. The league is looking to capitalize on this emerging market and is doing whatever they can to hold onto to this group. As interest increases so do their revenues. However, where there is interest in watching the game, then comes a desire to participate in it as well.

Women have recently decided that they want to play and/or coach the sport that was designed for men. This is not new to sports in this country. Women currently have their own leagues of baseball, basketball, and soccer both at the collegiate level as well as professional. When they play and learn these sports some will then have desires to coach those games as well. For these sports, it makes sense as both genders compete in those. It is different for football though.

A select few women will play these sports at the secondary school level and have varying degrees of success. Some even play the game collegiately. This past season, Vanderbilt was short handed at the kicker position due to those players testing positive for the coronavirus. Since it was on such short notice and the protocols that were put in place to keep all staff safe prevented them from bringing in another one, they had to look inward for a solution.

They elected to bring in a goalkeeper from the university’s women’s soccer team, Sarah Fuller, to kick for the team as an alternative. When she kicked off in a game, she became the first women to play in a power five conference football game. This was seen as a major achievement for women in football even if was just to kickoff in a game. That was not true for all around the sport. Some saw this as a publicity stunt as it seemed to be done purely for public relations to distract from the team’s losing season. Regardless of the reason behind it, this was a major milestone for women in the sport.

A woman has not yet played in the NFL, but they have found their way into the league in other ways. Sarah Thomas became the first female referee to officiate a Super Bowl this past year. Jen Welter became the first woman to coach the game professionally in 2015 as a part-time inside linebackers’ consultant for the Cardinals during training camp and the preseason. These women were pioneers in the sport paving the way for others to follow in their footsteps. Currently, just over 38% of all league employees are women and that has been a consistent trend since 2008.

As good as it is to see these women have success publicly on the field, it is not so easy in the offices for them. There have been numerous allegations of workplace discrimination and misconduct committed against women since they began working in the NFL. In the late 1980s, Sarah Spence was subject to a form of this behavior. It was the offseason, she knocked on the locker room door and heard no response, and concluded that it was safe to enter. A group of five athletes exposed themselves to her as she was making her way through the locker room to examine the new rehabilitation facilities. This event marked a turning point in the NFL and showed that these kinds of acts were in fact occurring in the league.

Woody Johnson, New York Jets owner and U.S. ambassador to Britain, was accused of making racist and sexist comments while working in the embassy. Half a dozen or so current and former employees were interviewed about these allegations saying these acts did in fact occur, but the findings of the report have not yet been made public for all to examine. Founder and former owner of the Carolina Panthers, Jerry Richardson, was in a similar situation around the same time as well. The franchise was sued for these allegations and was forced to settle those cases. Richardson then decided to sell his stake in the team to pay those as well other legal fees associated with those.

The franchise in Washington has recently become the center of scrutiny for this as well. First, they were forced to change their name to Football Team from what was viewed as racial slur toward Native Americans. While these issues were absolutely serious, it is not why I am discussing this team. Owner Dan Snyder has allegedly been worse than both of the two others I have discussed so far in terms of sexism. Current and former employees of the organization made similar accusations as the previous ones did. What sets him apart is centered around the team’s cheerleaders. They were shooting photos and a video was captured for the team’s calendar.

As bad as this may sound, this is standard for all NFL teams as a way to increase revenue. The difference here is that a separate video was reportedly shot for different purposes. This content showed lewd images of those individuals in it for private viewing by select team executives. It was also allegedly shot for Snyder himself. The franchise in a statement has denied all of these claims saying those events never happened. In 2021, the team hired a female assistant running back coach in Jennifer King as well as Latina woman executive, Natalie Dorantes.

While both individuals are deserving of their respective roles, were those hires just distractions from the wrongdoings of the past? We may never know for certain if this happened in Washington or around the NFL. This is a pressing issue in not just the league, but for the whole country as well.