The history of basketball is 130 years old. We will tell you about who invented basketball and how it was invented, as well as the periods and stages of its formation as a popular sport.
Who invented basketball?
James Naismith, who taught at the American Youth Christian Association (YCA) College in Springfield in the late 19th century. Naismith was looking for a new way to enthuse college students to play sports. In those days students did only gymnastics, which quickly bored them. James Naismith developed a new movement game to liven up the boring gymnastics classes.
The first basketball game was played on December 21, 1891. Naismith secured two fruit baskets on the balcony railings, divided the students into two teams, and gave them a homemade ball. The object of the game was the same as in modern basketball – to put the ball in the basket. The team that threw the ball the greatest number of times won.The game was fundamentally different from modern basketball. In the beginning, there was no ball handling and players just tossed the ball to each other, moving a short distance around the court, where there was virtually no markup. Players had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball from the basket.
When did the first rules come into play?
In 1892. Naismith and the students were satisfied with a game with virtually no rules only at first. Over time, there was a need for a clear regulation of the games, because sometimes even the fans on the balcony interfered with the game – catching the ball and throwing it in the basket. In 1892 James Naismith drew up the first set of basketball rules, with 13 clauses. That same year, physical education teacher Senda Berenson of a private women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, adapted the rules for women’s teams.The new rules were revised and amended after the first few matches. The fans continued to “hooliganize” and forced Naismith to invent a shield that protected the basket. In 1893, the fruit basket passed into history, giving way to the familiar ring with a net.
Another year later, the first official basketball rules were adopted and were in effect throughout the United States.In the U.S. basketball spread through educational institutions as part of physical education classes. Even before the turn of the 20th century, basketball appeared in Canada, where college and university students also enjoyed it. James Naismith promoted basketball in the United States, and MCA College, where the first game took place, regulated the rules of the game for about the first ten years of basketball’s existence.Two organizations, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Amateur Athletic Union, later took up the baton from MCA College.
They were responsible for popularizing basketball in America. As early as 1898 supporters of the new sport tried to create the first official association of teams-the National Basketball League. But this organization lasted only five years, while basketball meanwhile moved beyond North America.
When did basketball go international?
Closer to the twenties of the 20th century. Basketball first appeared in Asian countries with which the United States had active trade and diplomatic relations. The first basketball teams outside the United States appeared in Japan, China and the Philippines. Then basketball appeared in South America and Europe.The St. Louis Summer Olympics of 1904, in which Americans staged an exhibition tournament among teams from several nearby cities, played a major role in promoting basketball internationally. Later, in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, basketball was also introduced as an exhibition sport.
In the 1920s national basketball federations appeared in dozens of countries around the world. It was then that the first official international meetings took place. For example, in 1919 there was a basketball tournament between the army teams of the United States, France and Italy, and in 1923 France hosted the first international women’s basketball tournament with teams from the United States, England and Italy.The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) was founded in Geneva in 1932, and its first members were eight countries: Argentina, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Czechoslovakia. In 1935 the International Olympic Committee recognized basketball as an Olympic sport and in 1936 Berlin hosted the first ever set of Olympic basketball medals. Basketball’s founders won its first Olympic Games: Team USA beat Canada 19-8 in the final. During the Olympics, FIBA held its first international congress in Berlin, where unified international basketball rules were adopted.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the first professional teams began to form in the United States. There were even so-called “touring” teams, which managed to play 200 games across the country in one year. The most famous of them: “The Original Celtics, the New York Renaissance, and the Harlem Globetrotters. The Harlem Globetrotters exhibition team still exists to this day and acts as “goodwill ambassadors” for the United States around the world.
Professional basketball emerged in 1935 with the establishment of the Midwest Basketball Conference. Two years later, the organization grew into the National Basketball League (NBL), funded by General Electric, Firestone and Goodyear. The NBL originally had 13 corporate teams, but later grew to 38 clubs. In 1946, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) emerged, bringing together 16 teams. In 1949, the NBL and the BAA merged to form the most popular basketball league of our time, the National Basketball Association (NBA).
