Tensions are rising because of a recent ruling by the Southern District of New York in Flores v. National Football League that has raised stakes for the NFL and potentially other professional sports associations.
Judge Valerie Caproni decided that the action may proceed in federal court rather than remain in the confidential realm of arbitration, where disputes between coaches, players, NFL teams, and the league itself typically resolve.
By allowing the case to proceed in federal court, this opens the door for public disclosure of the inner workings of NFL’s teams hiring processes. In federal courts, judicial proceedings are presumptively open to the public. This means filings, hearings, and documents may become part of a public docket that journalists and the broader public can monitor.
Arbitration is typically more private where submissions and evidence remain confidential unless the parties agree otherwise. The NFL has historically kept the inner workings of its hiring processes behind closed doors. The prospect of public scrutiny could pressure the NFL to reevaluate or significantly revise the “Rooney Rule,” which requires NFL teams to interview at least two diverse candidates for head coach, general manager, and coordinator positions.
Caproni’s decision can also signal to other professional sports associations to reevaluate their own hiring policies, as any dispute related to the same may not be confined to private arbitration.
Factual Background
The class action alleges employment discrimination on the basis that several coaches—including plaintiffs Brian Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton—didn’t obtain head coaching positions in the NFL because of their race. Historically speaking, the NFL has sought to remedy this situation through the Rooney Rule.
Flores interviewed with the New York Giants for the head coach position on Jan. 27, 2022. But he received a congratulatory text a few days earlier from an NFL head coach, Bill Belichick, implying that Flores was the Giants’ selection for their new head coach. Flores informed Belichick that he hadn’t yet interviewed with the Giants and asked Belichick if he was confusing him with another candidate named Brian Daboll, who is White. Belichick apologized to Flores and informed him that he expected the Giants would select Daboll as their head coach, which the team eventually did.
Flores’ class action alleges discrimination under 42 USC Section 1981 and discrimination claims under New York and New Jersey state anti-discrimination statutes. He alleges that his interview with the Giants was a sham interview to satisfy the Rooney Rule because the Giants had already decided to go with Daboll as their head coach, as evidenced by the Belichick texts.
The NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, usually has the ultimate decision-making authority to resolve these disputes under the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement. But Goodell works for the owners of all 32 teams in the NFL. Because of this, Flores alleges Goodell’s oversight creates an inherent conflict of interest, so his case should be tried in open. Caproni’s ruling is significant because she sided with Flores.
Strength of Claims
The immediate fight won’t be over the lawsuit’s merits, as the NFL has already filed a motion to have this dispute go back to arbitration. Nevertheless, the underlying claims and defenses reveal meaningful strengths and weaknesses.
Flores’ Section 1981 claims is a high standard because he must prove “but-for” causation—that his race was the sole reason he wasn’t hired. The Giants have already said that no decision was made to hire Daboll prior to Jan. 27, 2022, and that they were still going through the evaluation process of all candidates when they interviewed Flores.
We can expect the Giants to argue that Belichick was the head coach of the New England Patriots at that time and not a person involved with the decision-making process to hire the Giants’ head coach. The Giants could also point to Daboll’s expertise on the offensive side of football as their reason to hire him, as Flores’ expertise is on the defensive side.
Flores is much more likely to succeed in his state anti-discrimination claims. These claims mirror the federal Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 anti-discrimination statute, which doesn’t require Section 1981’s but-for standard to prove damages. In fact, Flores’ lawsuit explicitly states that the complaint will be amended to include Title VII. Title VII claims allow mixed-motive discrimination claims to proceed where the discrimination was a motivating factor for the alleged discriminatory act.
The NFL will put forth non-discriminatory reasons for not hiring Flores, but the burden shifts back to Flores to show the NFL’s reason is pretextual, or a lie. The Belichick texts are as close to a smoking gun as any plaintiff can have to show pretext.
What to Watch
The pressing issue is whether this case should be in arbitration versus open court, and the NFL along with certain other teams filed a motion earlier this month for Caproni to reconsider her decision to allow this case to be tried in federal court.
The NFL likely wants to avoid federal court where the case docket is generally open to the public. For Flores, it appears he’s in his case for the long haul, as it is still in its early stages and was filed more than four years ago.
If Caproni denies the NFL’s motion to reconsider, we can expect the NFL to keep the docket private (which requires more legal motion practice and will extend the case) and/or attempt to settle this case before it gets to discovery, where the intricate details of the Giants’ and other teams’ hiring processes can be made public. Ultimately, the dispute over the forum is very consequential because it will determine how much of the NFL’s hiring practices become visible to the public.
The case is Flores v. Nat’l Football League, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:22-cv-00871, order 2/13/26.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.
Author Information
Masood Syed Ali is a senior associate at Segal McCambridge whose practice focuses on general litigation, employment law, and defending companies in complex commercial transactions.
Ryan Musleh contributed to this article.
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