For decades, the MLB and NFL were considered an exclusive domain for men; however, the male-dominated era of sports is beginning to take a turn. Both the MLB and the NFL have incorporated women into executive positions in their organizations across the league.
The executive women who work in the MLB and NFL should be viewed equally, but how do their educational backgrounds differ? From previously collected data, the following information was found:
| NFL | MLB | |
| Average Acceptance Rate of Undergraduate Institution | 60.2% | 50.9% |
| Average Attended Graduate Institution | 38.5% | 48.2% |
| Average Business/Management Major | 42.1% | 35.1% |
| Of Graduate Students, Average J.D. Completed | 40% | 29.3% |
| Of Graduate Students, Average MBA Completed | 33.3% | 24.4% |
The 9.3% difference in acceptance rates suggests that the MLB may be more apt to hiring female candidates that went to increasingly prestigious undergraduate institutions. In continuation of this idea, 9.7% more women in the MLB attended graduate institutions in comparison to those in the NFL.
With the understanding that more women who are executives in the NFL had a business related major than women who are executives in the MLB, it could be possible that NFL organizations have more specific criteria for their potential hires. To add on, there is a greater concentration of women (who attended a graduate institution) who received a J.D. or MBA in the NFL (73.3%) than in the MLB (53.7%).
For the NFL, the undergraduate majors were grouped into 10 different options, while in the MLB, the undergraduate majors were grouped into 19 different options. This further indicates that there is a greater variance in the backgrounds of women working in the MLB, suggesting that the NFL has a more streamlined idea for the education background of their female candidates.
