Major League Baseball began to desegregate in 1947 when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke baseball’s unwritten color ban.  This was the start of a racial shake-up in the League, but it would take another 12 years for all of the teams to integrate.  There is considerable research about the positive impact from integration, but little research about the reasons that led the individual teams to desegregate.  During that time period, the team owners did not feel any legal pressure to hire African-American players as there were no employment discrimination laws in existence; rather this was the “separate but equal†period in our country.  Instead, we posit that it was baseball’s fragile financial position following the Depression and World War II that created pressures on financially weak teams to desegregate in hopes of reviving their franchises.  This relative weakness is examined in cities with more than one team (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis and Chicago).  In determining the team’s financial performance prior to integration, we use attendance, on-field performance and team financial histories.  Based on this, we have found that the teams that performed poorly financially integrated first out of business necessity.