The determinants of Black quarterback pay in the National Football League

This paper seeks to econometrically determine differences in salary returns to attributes of quarterbacks in the National Football League (NFL), by race. We analyse salary determination of 215 White and Black quarterbacks over 2006 through 2020 with separate equations estimated for each group. Our analysis indicates that top draft pick evaluations persist into future pay setting for each group. However, there is a faster rate of decay of early draft round salary premium for Black quarterbacks. This is found to be robust across different estimations. This result is indicative of differential treatment in pay setting for Black quarterbacks.