Photo Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
*This piece first appeared in the Front Office Sports Newsletter. Subscribe today and get the news before anyone else.
If Adam Silver has his way, 50 percent of the new incoming NBA officials will be women.
That number applies to coaches too, Silver said speaking at the Economic Club of Washington.
How do the leagues stack up?
The following numbers, outside of MLB, come from 2018 reports put together by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida. MLB is the first league to have a report done on it this year.
1. NBA – 31.6% of team management are women / 37.2% of team professional admins are women
2. NFL – 22.1% of team senior admins are women / 35% of team professional admins are women
3. MLB – 28.6% of team senior admins are women / 26% of team professional admins are women
4. MLS – 26.5% of team senior admins are women / 31.6% of team professional admins are women
5. WNBA – 48.6% of team VPs and above are women / 58% of team managers to senior directors are women
6. NHL – No report done
Quotes from Silver…
“It’s an area, frankly, where I’ve acknowledged that I’m not sure how it was that it remained so male-dominated for so long. Because it’s an area of the game where physically, certainly, there’s no benefit to being a man, as opposed to a woman, when it comes to refereeing.”
“The goal is going forward, it should be roughly 50-50 of new officials entering in the league. Same for coaches, by the way. We have a program, too. There’s no reason why women shouldn’t be coaching men’s basketball.”
That’s not all Silver wants to see change…
Silver, who has been adamant about getting rid of the one-and-done rule, provided some clarity as to when that might be achieved.
According to the commissioner, the 2022 NBA Draft will likely be the first one since the 2005 NBA Draft to allow high school players to go straight into the league rather than playing a season in college first.
Citing “active discussions” with the NBPA, Silver noted that they are still “a few years away.”
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