A Matter Of Black And White

More than 44 years have passed since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, yet a large percentage of the black pro athletes who responded to a survey commissioned by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED feel blacks are still treated worse than white athletes in a variety of ways:

•Sixty-one percent of the blacks believe that their salary and/or contract terms are less favorable than those of whites.

•Sixty percent think that they are not treated as well by team management as whites are.

•Seventy-seven percent feel that their chances of moving into team management after retirement are negligible.

•Seventy-three percent believe that their opportunities to endorse products are worse than whites'.

•Seventy-one percent think that black athletes have to be more talented than whites to make a pro team.

•Sixty-nine percent feel that whites get preferential treatment over blacks when it comes to filling certain key positions on the field or court.

•Seventy-seven percent believe that management in their sport is not doing enough to put blacks into coaching or field managing positions.

The survey, conducted over the past three months for SI by the Connecticut-based firm of Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, was designed to reach all 2,290 players on the rosters of NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball teams. A total of 301 athletes in the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball filled out the confidential forms; of that number, 153 were white, 134 black and 12 Hispanic or Hispanic-American, and two described themselves as being of other races. Because the 13.1% response rate was low—50% is more the norm in routine mail surveys—the results do not represent a meaningful statistical measurement of the views of all professional athletes. Of course, the findings do clearly reflect the thinking of those who answered the five-page, 47-item questionnaire.

One possible explanation for the relatively sparse return is that the subject of race and sport remains a sensitive one—both to individual players and to their leagues. Another is that pro athletes are very difficult to reach. Because they travel so much and closely guard their phone numbers, it was not possible to conduct the questioning by phone, as most polling organizations do. So SI asked the public relations directors of teams in the three sports to distribute questionnaires to players. The NBA cooperated, but both the NFL and Major League Baseball discouraged its teams from lending assistance. Major League Baseball and the NFL cited policies of not distributing material on behalf of news organizations, but a spokesperson for a National League baseball team said that the commissioner's office felt the survey was "racially biased." And a source in the NFL office said the league wanted to hinder SI's efforts "for obvious reasons. They're concerned about looking bad." As a result of these reactions, many of the forms were thrown out or returned unanswered.