Basketball is one of the most popular and prominent sports today. It has over 2.2 billion fans and is played almost everywhere globally today. The NBA was created in 1946, but the roots of the sport go back over 100 years ago. It is one of the most recent sports created compared to other sports, such as soccer, whose roots go back to 2000 years ago. Ever since the NBA got created in 1946, Basketball slowly started to gain attraction, leading to its immense popularity. Basketball is now one of the most accessible sports, as most neighborhoods today have basketball courts, which is one of the reasons for its worldwide popularity. Basketball has created many popular and well-known athletes worldwide, such as Michael Jordan, Lebron James, and Kobe Bryant. Ultimately, Basketball is an entertaining game that promotes social skills and teamwork while providing physical activity and fun.

The game of Basketball was created in December of 1891 by a Canadian YMCA gym teacher, Dr. James Naismith, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Naismith wanted to invent a new game that students could play indoors during the brisk cold winter of Massachusetts. Then, Naismith decided to create a game that required skill and accuracy rather than sheer strength. Naismith used a peach basket, a ten-foot pole, and a soccer ball. There would be two teams of nine players, and the peach basket stuck to a wall 10 feet above the ground would be used as a goal. Players earned points by tossing the soccer ball into the peach baskets. After each made basket, players had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball from the bottom of the peach basket. Since the sport had a “basket” and a “ball”, the sport was called basketball. Iron hoops with open-ended nets came along in 1913! In 1891, the first-ever game was played between Naismith’s students. It took a while, but one of the players finally scored a point, and Basketball’s first-ever match concluded with an epic final score of 1 – 0! Naismith would adjust the game’s rules over the next 20 years as the game continued to evolve. Naismith added a backboard and experimented with the game by using different balls. A problem that players realized was that when a basket was scored, someone had to climb up to get the ball from the basket. To make sure it would be easier for the ball to fall from the basket, Naismith added a metal ring, which is now known as a hoop. Initially, players could only advance the ball by passing it. Bouncing the ball along the floor, in what we call “dribbling” today, did not become part of the game until later. In 1892, dribbling became legal, where a player could dribble to move. This couldn’t have been done before and changed how players played the game.

Naismith found out that his students enjoyed playing Basketball, which led them to go to other YMCA gyms across the country to teach the game to other people. This led to the rapid popularization of the game in both the US and Canada. In 1893, Women played in the first-ever women’s collegiate basketball league. In 1895, the popularity of Basketball spread and became an established sport that players played throughout high schools and universities across the country. The University of Kansas, led by one of Nasmith’s close friends established a collegiate basketball program there. In 1898, James Naismith was hired by the University of Kansas as a PE instructor and their basketball team coach. Since there were not many other collegiate teams back then, the University of Kansas would play against local YMCA teams. Slowly, other colleges, such as Kansas State, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Chicago, started joining the league. By 1901, collegiate basketball competitions would be taking place throughout the nation. Naismith added a backboard and created a leather basketball. Eventually, an iron ring with a woven net replaced peach baskets.

In 1907, Naismith quit coaching Basketball and focused on getting a master’s degree in physical education. In the 1920s, famous former players began creating many minor basketball leagues nationwide. There were 2-3 teams in each division spread across ranges in the country. Among the teams formed in these leagues, the one who stood out the most was the Harlem Globetrotters. Their flashy and entertaining play style helped spread the sport’s popularity. In 1936, the sport officially became an Olympic sport, with a gold medal played outside in rainy conditions. In 1937, the first ever professional basketball league, NBL, was established, marking the first official pro basketball league. The NBL was able to gather sponsorships from companies such as General Electric.

By the 1940s, Basketball had evolved significantly since its creation, but it was still way different from how the game is played today. For example, in the NBL, the Home Team could choose if the game should be played in 4 10-minute quarters or 3 quarters consisting of 15 minutes. At the time, the NBL was successful despite the fact they played in multiple different venues such as ballrooms and bowling alleys.

During the latter stages of Naismith’s career, Basketball was still a small collegiate and less popular sport than Football. However, one advantage that Basketball still has over Football back then and today is that it’s much safer. The physical sport of Football didn’t even have the proper safety equipment that players today have. This made it dangerous since the sport had less protection, leading to more injuries. In 1905, concerned by the severe injuries and occasional death caused by Football, President Theodore Roosevelt asked colleges to discontinue the sport. Colleges rejected this but created the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) to form a committee to monitor and change the rules to make the sport safer. Then, NCAA started organizing other sports, including Basketball, in Colleges. By 1939, many US Colleges adopted the game, and the NCAA Basketball held its first-ever national championship tournament, which was called March Madness. This was significant as even though NCAA controls many sports divisions, Division I Basketball generates nearly 80% of its revenue.

During the 1940s, Basketball became an informal outdoor game for US service members during World War II. By the 1950s, Basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way for the growth of interest in professional Basketball. In 1946, competition arose with the NBL and BAA, created by Walter Brown. Brown was the first person to establish the first college basketball doubleheader. The NBL’s popularity was slighter more prominent than the BAA’s, even though BAA was on the rise. Brown was also the owner of the Boston Garden, which was at the time a hockey arena for the Boston Bruins. Then he realized that the primarily used Hockey Rink in the Arena could be used as a Basketball Court when Hockey was not being played. This was used in other Hockey Arenas as well as they weren’t often used consistently. BAA was suddenly on the rise and wasn’t too far off from the NBL. Unlike the NBL, the BAA held major basketball games at the Boston Garden and Madison Square Garden in Boston and New York City, respectively. This proved to be an advantage for BAA as they played in massive venues, unlike the NBL. From 1946 – 1949, the two leagues competed intensely to be America’s most popular and premier league. Eventually, in 1949, the presidents of the two leagues, Joseph Carr and Leo Fischer, met at the Empire State Building. Carr and Fischer realized that instead of competing against each other, they should form a union and merge together to make all of the profit. There they agreed to merge the two leagues to become the National Basketball Association (NBA) as it is known today. The BAA accepted some of NBL’s teams as expansion teams, but due to NBL’s immense size, this may have been a merger than an expansion. This creates a weird fiasco as the NBA today doesn’t recognize NBL History as its own, but instead, it adapts the history of the BAA. The NBA considers itself to be founded in 1946 when the BAA was founded instead of 1949 when the NBA itself was created. This created another controversy since players from the NBL who transferred to the BAA or NBA had their stats not counted. One of those players was George Mikan. The NBL was definitely as significant as the BAA for the creation of the NBA.

By the 1890s, Basketball had already spread throughout multiple parts of Canada due to the fact that James Naismith himself was Canadian. While College Basketball was growing across the US, Basketball already grew in popularity in Europe. Naismith was also living in France during that time. Due to the increasing popularity in Europe as many countries were already playing the game. This led many countries such as Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Latvia, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, and Romania to gather together to form the Federal International Basketball Association (FIBA) in 1932. Argentina however is the sole South American country because Argentina had been influence by centuries of European colonization and influence that other South American countries. Argentina has produced NBA Players such as Manu Ginobili for example, who are from European descent. By 1936, Basketball was included as one of the Olympic sports, and by the 1950s, one year after the NBA was created, FIBA held its first-ever basketball world cup.