Race and Sports
It’s no secret that early sports were limited to people with white skin. Black people were banned, and Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans could only play if their skin was light enough. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in the MLB, and since then, the integration of other races into professional sports has increased dramatically. Now, popular sports teams like Liverpool, New York Yankees, Real Madrid, etc are all made up of people with different nationalities from all around the world. In this four part series, we're going to take a look at three races, and see how they compare to the modern world of sports.
Major Races as a Percentage of the Makeup of Major Sports Leagues in the US
There are some interesting trends when comparing the two graphs. Black people have the highest makeup by percentage in Football and Basketball, more than white people, despite being one of the last races to be allowed into modern sports. Hispanic people are almost entirely absent from the NFL and NBA, while constituting a huge part of the MLB and MLS. Asians are pretty much absent from the sports theater, disproportionately from the amount of Asians that make up the US. Why is this? What are the trends when it comes to race and sports? In this four-part series, we're gonna take a look at each race and see why these are the trends.
