History was made on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, as the Carolina Panthers and Las Vegas Raiders faced off in the first NFL game featuring women-led teams.
As AFROTECH™ previously reported, The Raiders are led by Sandra Douglass Morgan, the first Black and Asian woman to serve as an NFL team president, taking over from Dan Ventrelle. The Panthers are led by Kristi Coleman, who replaced Tom Glick as president.
The Panthers defeated the Raiders 36-22 on Sunday.
Coleman was named president in February 2022, followed by Morgan in July of that year. According to the Raiders, the two women have formed a strong professional relationship over the past two seasons, with Morgan even joining Coleman for the Panthers’ International Women’s Day celebration in 2023.
“You do feel a little bit more comfortable when you have someone else you can call,” Coleman shared, per the Panthers. “While Charlotte and Vegas are obviously two very different markets, the role and what you’re having to do isn’t different. A lot of the things we do and nuances that we experience are the same.”
“We both have been pretty open that in order to be it, sometimes you have to see it,” Morgan said, according to the Raiders. “If anyone, a young woman, a young boy, anyone sees us and says, ‘OK, I can do this. I can lead a team,’ I think that’s an incredible thing and again, I’m proud to share this moment with her.”
Last year, women in professional staff positions at the team level made up an all-time high of 36.3%, per The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. Women also comprised 42.5% of employees in the NFL League Office, a significant increase from a decade ago when they held only 29.3% of these positions.
During her introductory press conference in 2022, Morgan addressed issues in the league, particularly the alarmingly low percentage of Black coaches — a stark reality that prompted former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores to take the lead in filing a lawsuit alleging racism in hiring practices.
Morgan made it clear that she wasn’t “here to sweep anything under the rug or avoid problems or concerns that need to be addressed,” emphasizing that she respects those who paved the way for underrepresented groups in sports and envisions a future “where there are no more firsts.”
“The fact is I accepted this role because I believe in the promise of the Raiders, I believe in the future of the Raiders, and I believe in this organization’s tenets of integrity, community and, most of all, commitment to excellence,” she said at the time, per AFROTECH™. “I believe in the Davis family’s legacy of celebrating and promoting diversity in every sense of that word. I believe in this community that we now call home that has embraced this team with open arms.”
While Morgan’s role with the Raiders is significant on its own, the team also reportedly made history last year as the first in the NFL to have a Black president, Black head coach (Antonio Pierce), and Black general manager (Champ Kelly), as previously reported by AFROTECH™.
