Jim Trotter, a former reporter at NFL Network, is suing the NFL and the league’s cable channel for racial discrimination, claiming his contract was not renewed this year because he repeatedly spoke out about pro football’s lack of diversity in the league’s front office, among of its coaches and within the media arm.
Trotter, now a columnist for The Athletic, a sports website owned by The New York Times Company, said in a 53-page complaint filed in Manhattan federal court that he was let go in retaliation for, among other things, publicly challenging his Commissioner Roger. Goodell on the league’s commitment to diversity.
“The NFL has claimed it wants to be accountable on diversity, equity and inclusion,” Trotter said in a statement. “I tried to do it and it cost me my job.”
Trotter said he has previously raised concerns about discrimination in the NFL taking Goodell on national television in February 2023. Among his claims were what he believed to be racist comments allegedly made by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula.
In August 2020, the suit alleges, Trotter asked Jones why there weren’t more black professionals in decision-making positions on NFL teams. “If black people feel that way, they should buy their own team and hire whoever they want to hire,” Jones replied, according to the complaint.
Jones, in a statement, said: “Diversity and inclusion are extremely important to me personally and to the NFL. it’s just not accurate.”
Trotter said he wanted to mention Jones on the air during coverage of Jon Gruden in 2021 after racist emails the former Raiders coach wrote came to light because he felt there was a pattern of disdain for diversity. The lawsuit alleges that two of Trotter’s supervisors instructed him not to use Jones’ comment.
The lawsuit claims Pegula’s comment was relayed by a network colleague during a September 2020 conference call involving about 40 NFL Media employees following the killing of George Floyd. According to Trotter’s account, the NFL Media official quoted Pegula as saying, “If the black players don’t like it here, they should go back to Africa and see how bad it is.”
In a statement, Pegula said the quote attributed to him is “absolutely false,” adding that he was “horrified that someone would associate me with a claim of this nature.”
An NFL spokesman said the league investigated after NFL Network executives reported what the employee had shared in the staff meeting and could not confirm the reporter’s account.
“Mr. Trotter has raised his concerns on numerous occasions about the NFL’s record of racial diversity and discrimination, but the NFL has done nothing to investigate or legally address his concerns — even though the offensive behavior was committed by people at the top of the NFL hierarchy.. the complaint said.
An NFL spokesman said in a statement: “We take his concerns seriously, but we strongly dispute his specific allegations, particularly those made against his dedicated colleagues at NFL Media,” and said their decision not to renew was due to budget constraints .
Despite the dispute, Trotter, who has been with NFL Network for five years, expected to be offered a contract extension this spring. According to the complaint, Sandra Nunez, NFL Network’s vice president of on-air talent oversight, told Trotter’s agent last November that she “could not imagine any reason why his contract would not be renewed” through March 2023. and asked if he wanted to expand his role.
But in February, just before the Super Bowl, Trotter questioned Commissioner Goodell at a news conference about the league’s commitment to diversity and why a black man had never been hired as a senior executive in the NFL Network newsroom. The question was similar to the one Trotter asked Goodell at last season’s Super Bowl press conference.
The next day, according to Trotter’s complaint, his supervisor asked one of his co-workers, “Why does Jim keep bringing this up?”
In early March, Trotter claims Nunez asked if he was “aligned” with the NFL, to which he replied that he was not aligned with a newsroom without “black representation in decision-making positions.” On March 24, Nunez told Trotter’s agent that Trotter’s contract was not being renewed.
Trotter is seeking damages to be determined at trial and the appointment of a court-ordered monitor to investigate the league’s “policies and practices in the hiring, retention and promotion of Blacks at all levels of the NFL organization and hierarchy.”
“The NFL should be ashamed of the racial hostility openly expressed by team owners and the complete lack of action by the league after being notified,” said Doug Wigdor and David Gottlieb, Trotter’s attorneys.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges alleging racial discrimination in the NFL In 2019, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was awarded multimillion-dollar damages after he claimed NFL teams routinely kicked him for kneeling in protest about police brutality. and social injustice during the national anthem standoff.
Trotter is represented by the same law firm as Brian Flores, a Black and Hispanic assistant coach with the Minnesota Vikings who is suing the league and several teams for racially discriminating against him as he applied for coaching jobs. A judge ruled in March that Flores’ lawsuit can proceed through the court system instead of moving behind closed doors to private arbitration.
The league has tried for decades to increase the hiring of coaches and senior executives of color, with mixed results. The Rooney Rule, which the league introduced in 2003 under threat of political action, requires teams to include non-white candidates and women in interviews for open positions. Six of the major league’s 32 head coaches are people of color, up from four in 2020, but down from the record eight in 2018. The share of assistant coaches of color reached a record 42.9 percent in 2022, up two percentage points from 2021 .
The number of presidents and general managers of Black groups also increased. In the past three years, five teams have hired Black presidents and there are eight Black general managers, representing a quarter of the league’s teams. As recently as 2020, there were only two black general managers. The first black president of an NFL team, Jason Wright of the Washington Commanders, was hired in 2020, and Sandra Douglass Morgan, president of the Las Vegas Raiders, in July 2022 became the first black woman to hold the position.
Jenny Brenda contributed to the report.
