The NBA began the 2023-24 season last month with no Black majority-owned franchises for the first time in 20 years. As University of Colorado Boulder media scholar Jared Bahir Browsh points out, this lack of diversity is particularly galling given that 70% of NBA players are Black.

It wasn’t always this way. Though the NBA has had only one Black majority-owned franchise – along with a few Black minority owners – there’s a rich history of Black-owned teams prior to the emergence of the NBA.

Browsh takes readers to Harlem’s Renaissance Ballroom & Casino, where Black businessman Bob Douglas and his New York Rens competed for 25 years. Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the team’s first game, and the Rens would go on to dominate basketball in the 1920s and 1930s – at one point ripping off an 88-game win streak.

In an era ripe with the exploitation of Black athletes, Browsh writes that owners like Douglas “saw an opportunity to support Black communities through sports by keeping talent – and money – from exclusively lining the pockets of white owners.”

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