NFL has two female presidents for the first time

When the Carolina Panthers face the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, it will be a historic debut for the National Football League.

The game marks the first time two female presidents have faced off in professional football. The two executives represent a small but growing group of women in the NFL's front office and are the only two female presidents among the league's 32 teams.

“I'm really proud of this moment,” Carolina Panthers President Kristi Coleman told CNBC before the game. “It shows that as long as you do a good job, you can accomplish anything.”

Coleman, who has a finance background, was named team president of the Panthers in February 2022 after previously serving as vice president and chief financial officer of Tepper Sports & Entertainment. Hedge fund founder David Tepper owns the Panthers.

Sandra Douglass Morgan was named president of the Raiders by owner Mark Davis in July 2022 after more than two decades in the gaming, legal and corporate sectors.

Douglass Morgan said that this moment did not escape her.

“We want to celebrate the fact that these are groundbreaking moments, but at the same time, like any other president in the league, we're doing our job and making sure we handle the day-to-day operations,” Douglass Morgan said.

The NFL has made great efforts in recent years to increase gender diversity in its ranks.

Last year, 42.5 percent of NFL league office employees were women — a historic high and “a significant improvement over the previous year, when only 29.3 percent of those positions were women,” according to the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

According to the league, 243 women hold managerial positions.

The numbers are also rising on the pitch.

According to the NFL, there are currently 22 women working as full-time coaches in the NFL, a record for any male professional sports league and an increase of 187% over the last five years.

To grow and develop this pool of women, the NFL hosts a Women's Forum every year. Since its launch in 2017, more than 400 women have gone through the program, and the league says it has created over 250 opportunities for women at all levels of football.

Douglass Morgan said women's interest in the NFL has been on the rise for years and hiring a more diverse workforce is critical to appealing to these new fans.

“As our fans become more diverse, I believe our employee base should too,” she said.

While the league sees flag football as another source of growth for the sport, Coleman and Douglass Morgan say it is another way for women to get involved in the game.

Today, the NFL's flag football program has more than 700,000 participants and offers women the opportunity to play in college.

Both Douglass Morgan and Coleman say their teams' owners have done everything humanly possible to make them feel welcome in the league.

“Mark Davis always said, 'Sandra, I don't care if you're white, black or whatever, I hired you because you're the best person for the job. You're the best person to lead the Raiders,'” Douglass Morgan told CNBC.

Both executives advise women who want to gain a foothold in male-dominated sports leagues to have confidence in their own ability to learn new things and not to be afraid to bet on themselves.

“You have to do your job, the job you have, and you have to do it well so that people can imagine you in your next job. And then I would say you have to be kind and believe in yourself too,” Coleman said.

“Don't let them see you sweat,” Douglass Morgan said. “When you're only two out of 32, we may be under more scrutiny because we're in the minority here. Make sure you have a good group of people around you to support you through any guaranteed challenges that come your way.”