“All the Makings of an Eventual NFL Starter:” Racial/Ethnic Disparities in a Decade of NFL Draft Profiles as Revealed by Natural Language Processing

Abstract

Student-athletes are often treated differently and inequitably based on their race/ethnicity. For example, empirical evidence suggests Black student-athletes face unjust stereotyping and discrimination because they are seen for their athletic achievements over their academic achievements compared to White student-athletes. Using in-game broadcast data, Black athletes are also discussed differently than White athletes, with disparities in how broadcasters focus on players’ physical and cognitive abilities. The current paper builds on this literature by using natural language processing techniques to identify how experts communicate about different NFL prospects. A decade of data (2014-2023), including nearly 4,000 draft profiles, suggested that writers attending to Black draftees used fewer positive emotion terms in player narratives than writers attending to White draftees. Narratives of White players also mentioned the NFL more than narratives of Black players, revealing a possible disparity in perceived belonging to the league. Implications for theory and equity in sport are discussed.