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>However, I think if you start digging, you'll find lots of structural barriers for blacks in various sports or in various positions in sports. You and I are both old enough to remember when it was believed that a black man couldn't be an effective quarterback. I seem to recall hearing that kind of stuff when the Eagles got Randall Cunningham, which isn't all that long ago. There's a reason the NFL requires teams to interview at least one person of color for top positions.
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>And even when people of color are successful, they sometimes get treated differently. Look at the way the people talk about Serena Williams vs. say, Maria Sharapova. Lots of comments about Serena's "muscularity" and lots of racist stuff on social media.

Frankly, I think that Serena is more attractive than Maria, but I'm not sure that I'm allowed to say that.

Yes, sports should be as close as we can get to being a pure meritocracy.
We now have black owners in the NBA where, as I said, 60 years ago there were no black players. As far as I'm concerned, the players should own all the sports teams, but that's another subject.

To ignore race, though, is being naive. It's part of our fabric and it's not necessarily a bad part.
Check out Sebastian Junger's book "Tribe."