Football and Baseball

Sports and the entertainment industry are often the most accessible routes to prosperity for poor people, regardless of "race" or ethnic origin. Poor people do not have the educational opportunities of more affluent families, and they don't look like members of the dominant culture (whites of European descent, often Protestants). The sports and entertainment industries do not require higher education, and they often don't care about the appearance of those who make their careers there.

By the way, blacks, people of Hispanic descent and poor whites are "over-represented" in the military, as well. The military will train you for the job they assign, and although higher education can be a plus, it's not a requirement. The military doesn't care what you look like, either.

Your question is, tangentially, an example of the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances, a statistical fallacy. It is the fallacy of looking only at the data which confirm one's thesis, while ignoring other data. In the case of your question, you have focused on sports, and on two sports in particular. Furthermore, you ignore that other ethnic groups are also represented in sports, entertainment and the military in numbers greater than the proportion of their groups in the general population. It's not a matter of a great many Americans of African descent in those two sports, it's a matter of sports, entertainment and the military being the most accessible career paths of poor people, regardless of their superficial description.

Setanta-

Thank you.

I think your assertions about myself are not supported by the evidence. I read that the percentage of African American football and baseball players is far higher than in the general population and I wondered why.

I thank you for providing me with the answer.

However, I don't have a "thesis." I'm not ignoring anything. I only asked a question.

don't believe everything you read.

major league baseball has seen a significant drop in percentage of African American players,
and is trying to figure out ways to bring the numbers up...

Region Philbis-

Thank you.

It sounds strange. Why should it be major league baseball's purpose to increase the percentage of African American players?

http://www.thepostgame.com/african-american-mlb-legends-modern-baseball

see also
https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/baseball-demographics-1947-2012