The road from Robinson to Kaepernick

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Chapter 3 in Sports Economics Uncut, 2018, pp 36-50 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In 1947 Jackie Robinson broke down a barrier for black baseball players, demolishing a symbol of a segregated society. At the 1968 Olympics, two African American athletes protested racial injustice during the national anthem. Another 40 years later, Colin Kaepernick imitated their protests. Chapter 3 examines the evolution of racial bias in sports and how it both reflected and led to larger societal patterns. It begins with evidence from the explicit barriers in the 1940s, proceeds to more subtle expressions in salaries and playing time, and moves on to evaluate more recent studies of NFL and MLB officiating, utilizing millions of data points. The chapter also looks beyond bias to other factors that produce race-related, but not biased-induced, outcomes. It ends with the question of why feelings are so raw regarding racial issues when so much of the measurable evidence has gone from obvious to microscopic.

Keywords: Economics and Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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