The report said teams improved at hiring people of color such as Dusty Baker as managers, but need to do better in other areas.getty images
MLB received strong marks for racial and gender hiring in its central office but has more work to do on those fronts at the team level, especially in high-level executive club positions, according to the latest data compiled by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
The 2020 MLB Racial and Gender Report Card, created by the institute known as TIDES, overall gives MLB a B+ for its racial hiring, or 88.7 points, slightly down from 89.4 points in the 2019 report. The league received a C, or 72.7 points, for its gender hiring practices, up from 69.6 points in 2019. The league’s overall grade was a B, or 80.7 points, which was up 1.2 points over last year.
MLB’s central office received an A+ for racial hiring and a B+ for gender hiring practices, both increases from the 2019 report card. People of color comprised 37.5% and women comprised 40.1% of the total central office professional staff, the highest percentage reported since 2007.
The report says there needs to be an added focus at the club level to mirror the central office’s success in diverse hiring practices. Of the six grades for race at the team level, the only A grade or better was for coaches at 41.8% people of color, with managers receiving a B+. Teams received a B for racial hiring at the senior administration level and a B+ at the professional administration level, but a C- and a D+ for gender hiring at the same positions.
“We’re not going to relax until we receive A-pluses in every category, every year,” MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem told Sports Business Journal. “The way we look at it, we need, as both a business and social imperative, to make progress rapidly. We are pleased that each year we improve in different areas, including this year having more female employees in leadership positions of central baseball. But we recognize that we still have a lot of work to do in many areas to achieve our goal of having an extremely diverse work force in entry-level positions, mid-level positions and senior management.”
The annual report card tracks gender and diversity data among all owners, general managers, players, coaches and full-time front-office professional staff from each MLB team as well as all professional staff at MLB headquarters.
Beginning with the 2020 report cards, a racial and gender hiring grade for team CEO/presidents and team vice presidents is being calculated into the final grades. Based on previous report cards, this will result in either slightly reduced or less improved overall grades for race and gender across all 2020 report cards compiled by TIDES.
“Major League Baseball teams need to expand inclusive hiring practices in order to accurately represent the players who play the game and the communities they serve,” said Richard Lapchick, the primary author of the report and director of TIDES.
To illustrate its diversity efforts, MLB pointed to its Diversity Pipeline Program, which identifies and develops qualified minority and female candidates for on-field and baseball operations positions. Its MLB Diversity Fellowship recruits at colleges to attract diverse individuals to baseball operations jobs. In addition, the Players Alliance, a grassroots organization comprising 124 current and former players, works toward increasing diversity and focusing on social activism.
“It will take a little time for those programs to produce general managers or CEO/presidents on the business side,” Halem said. “But I do think we are making progress in terms of introducing a lot more diverse employees to our clubs. We are going to see the fruits of that in the future.”
