Moving to one of the most racist cities in the U.S. with the NBA on the Horizon:

The New York Renaissance, also known as the “Rens”, originated in Harlem in 1923. For more than two decades, the Rens were one of the world’s best basketball teams, yet were forced to operate as a barnstorming team due to racial realities of the Jim Crow era. In 1948, economic desperation forced the Rens’ owner to move his team to Dayton, Ohio, to play in the NBL, an almost exclusively white basketball league (also a precursor to the National Basketball Association, or the NBA).In the first half of the 20th century, in the midst of the Jim Crow era, Dayton increasingly became a city defined by its strict segregationist policies and racial violence, reflecting the state of the U.S. as a whole.

By the 1930s, approximately 1/5 of Dayton residents were estimated to be members of the KKK, one of the highest rates among cities in the entire country. Federal government sponsored economic and social policies relegated Black Americans into an inferior economic position and prevented Black participation in broader society.

It would seem to be a striking dichotomy, therefore, that in what at first appeared to be a major breakthrough for integration in American professional sports, the National Basketball League selected Dayton, with its history of racism, as the site of an all-black, black-owned basketball team in an almost entirely white league, which one year later would allow every team but one to join the newly formed NBA. Ultimately, the arrangement was a farce, as the Rens' circumstances were a microcosm of the racism which was prevalent throughout the United States during the Jim Crow era.

The Harlem Globetrotters: racial stereotypes, (allegedly) rigged games, and corruption:

In the 1930s, the Rens were the best team in the world, at one point winning 88 consecutive games and the World Professional Basketball Tournament, but were forced to operate as a barnstorming team because arenas wouldn’t support them full-time, and either entirely or almost entirely white professional leagues wouldn’t support an all-black, black-owned basketball team. The Rens also found themselves competing with the Harlem Globetrotters, a team that was distinctly not from Harlem, but were given their name by their white owner who wanted to indicate to white fans that the team was Black.

Their owner, Abe Saperstein, saw tremendous economic value in attempting to monopolize top Black basketball talent, and encouraging them to play into racist stereotypes of the time period, entertaining white fans who wanted to see Black players act like “clowns”. The Rens refused to play into these characterizations, as Douglas insisted that he was in the business for “the betterment of the race”. However, Saperstein’s strategy was so effective that in the years immediately after WWII, the Globetrotters, even as a barnstorming team, were the biggest draw of any basketball team in the world. In fact, they singlehandedly supported the top professional leagues at that time.

All-white professional teams would schedule their games as the back half of doubleheaders, following Globetrotter matchups, in order to have a much larger audience. There was an unwritten agreement among Saperstein and professional leagues; in exchange for booking these doubleheaders, the teams would agree not to sign top Black players. The Rens couldn’t compete with Globetrotter salaries. Meanwhile, adding to the Rens’ struggles, Saperstein’s back-room agreements with those same owners effectively blocked Douglas from booking large capacity arenas they controlled. In 1948, with the Rens beginning to find themselves in a precarious financial situation, the World Professional Basketball Tournament, featuring some of the best all-white teams in the world, presented a major opportunity.

After securing a major signing in the talented big man Nat Clifton, who Saperstein had threatened to go to the Supreme Court in a contract dispute as he considered him “his property”, the Rens felt they could make a run. The team made it all the way to the final of the tournament where they faced the heavy favorite, the Minneapolis Lakers, then recognized as the best all-white team in the world. With the Rens in a position to win the game in the final minute on an open fast break, Clifton opted for a behind-the-back pass, inexplicably throwing the ball out of bounds and nowhere near any of his teammates.

For decades, his teammates maintained that Clifton intentionally threw the game. In the immediate aftermath of the tournament, Clifton joined the Harlem Globetrotters, becoming one of the highest paid players in basketball. The owner of the Globetrotters may have benefitted more than anyone from the Rens failing to become world champions.

If they had won, they would have had tremendous leverage in negotiations with professional leagues. Instead, the Rens, who were now struggling to book arenas and stay solvent, were forced to join the NBL in a move of desperation. The NBL forced them to in effect replace the current Detroit team, inheriting their win-loss record, the worst in the league and all their debts. If this wasn’t bad enough, the Rens were also forced to move to the City of Dayton, playing in an arena in a white part of town in a city characterized by segregation and racial violence.

Rather than a breakthrough, it was all a farce:

There was no chance that the team was going to receive fan support in such an environment. Often the team would be supported by as few as 2,000 fans. Because of a lack of revenue, the team was forced to split in half, with half of the team continuing to barnstorm in order to stay economically viable. The team predictably struggled, and because of the 2-17 record that they inherited, the Rens finished as the worst team in the league. However; by their own winning percentage in the games that they actually played, the Rens were good enough to make the playoffs.

Following the 1948-1949 season, the NBL merged with the BAA to create the NBA. In the merger talks the NBL, which included the Rens, agreed on “only on a merger, not any other type of agreement”. However, towards the very end of discussions, the N.B.L. chose to include only eight of its nine teams. To justify omitting the Rens, the N.B.L. voided the franchise agreement it had with Dayton, citing the team’s last place finish. What seemed to be a tremendous opportunity turned out to be a sham, “On the surface, the New York Rens’ entrée into the National Basketball League was a historical breakthrough for Bob Douglas and for the race. In reality, the team masqueraded as the Dayton Rens for half of a failed season and was shut out of the real deal – the chance to join the N.B.A”.

Following the season, the Rens, possibly history’s most dominant professional basketball team to that point, were forced to cease operations, and Douglas was forced to retire from basketball ownership. The NBA began its inaugural season in 1949 without any African-American players, “as planned”. Ultimately, the Rens were not able to make any discernible impact on racial inequality in Dayton or even in team ownership. To this day, Dayton remains one of the most segregated cities in the United States, and has striking racial inequalities in the accumulation of wealth. Dayton continues to suffer from segregation in neighborhoods and schools, as well as very different educational standards in “West Dayton”, which at some point simply became code for the areas in which Black Dayton residents lived. Dayton’s racial wealth gap continues to be staggering.

Despite being arguably the best basketball team in the world for a span of close to two decades, the Rens are at times treated as a historical footnote in the history of the integration of professional basketball. In the end, the Rens were denied admission into the NBA, and the team was forced to fold. However, in 1972, Bob Douglas, once snubbed by the NBA and forced out of business by white owners, became the first African American to be elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. While today, the NBA's player pool has been fully integrated, the effects of racial exploitation are shown prominently through team ownership. Today, Michael Jordan is the only Black majority owner in the major U.S. professional sports.