MLB, MLBPA donate $10M to The Players Alliance to grow sport in Black community

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association are donating $10 million to The Players Alliance to help make the sport more accessible to Black communities across the United States, the league announced.

The Players Alliance, which is made up of more than 100 current and former Black professional baseball players, will receive the money over five years for baseball equipment for Black groups in need across the U.S., as well as a player-led mentorship program and a program to recruit Black students to internships in the sport, among other initiatives.

"MLB and the union have rolled out programs historically, and some have been great and some have obviously needed to have a little bit of assistance to them," The Players Alliance president Curtis Granderson said, according to James Wagner of The New York Times.

He added: "We, as the players - the market you have been targeting - some of us have gone through these programs or have started very similar programs, so we can be a great resource to take the programs that are already good and make them better, or introduce some new ones."

Granderson also said The Players Alliance had no money in its bank account before this recent donation.

There were only 67 Black players, two managers, two heads of baseball operations, and one club president to start the 2020 MLB season.