Migration of African American football players to Canada
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Prior to World War II African American athletes were barred from playing in major professional sports leagues. Although the National Football League (NFL) color barrier officially fell in 1946 (quickly followed by the Baseball color line one year later when Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers) these events were just the beginning of the struggles for African American athletes. Integration proceeded very slowly over the next two decades, and economists have shown that African Americans continued to suffer from various forms of discriminatory treatment. Beginning in 1946, a steady flow of African Americans began to migrate to the Canadian Football League which, at the time, was a legitimate competitor league to the NFL.
African Americans were better represented in the CFL relative to the NFL; African Americans still faced some level of entry discrimination in the CFL. In particular, African American players in the CFL outperformed their white counterparts on numerous performance dimensions, but were reimbursed quite differently.
