The historical marginalization of Black fans at Major League Baseball games

Authors

  • Seth S. Tannenbaum Manhattanville College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2025.2649

Keywords:

Discrimination, Race, Suburbanization

Abstract

There are many explanations of the decline in Black American baseball players and some explanations of the decline of Black American fans at Major League Baseball (MLB) games, but few of those explanations analyze the role of the historical fan experience at MLB games. When examined, it becomes clear that the persistent, but adaptable, historical marginalization of Black fans at MLB games—from describing them differently to treating them differently to segregating them to building new ballparks far removed from Black communities to not marketing to Black audiences to making it difficult for Black fans to reach games—is a major contributing factor to the disproportionately low number of Black American fans at MLB games today.

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Published

2025-03-14

Issue

Vol. 45 (2025): Sports Fandoms

Section

Article

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Seth S. Tannenbaum

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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