It’s not an overstatement to say that racism put a ceiling on how robust Black support for the majors could ever become; “the gentleman’s agreement” that MLB teams couldn’t sign Black players meant Black folks never had the same deep-seated ties to MLB.
There was a surge of Black fandom after Jackie Robinson integrated the majors, but there was always a sense that white fans would only allow MLB to become integrated to a *point.* (Black fandom topped out as a % of viewership in ‘72 — coincidentally the year Robinson died.)
Compare that to the NBA; its first Black player, Earl Lloyd, debuted three years after the league’s founding. Within its first decade, the league was already full of Black stars.
By its second, there were already Black coaches. (Lloyd was the second, after Bill Russell.)
