National Basketball Association begins
The National Basketball Association (NBA) originated from a merger between two professional leagues: the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL) in 1949. Before the formation of the NBA, basketball was primarily dominated by college games, with fans more familiar with college players than those in the professional leagues. The BAA, founded in 1946, included teams from major East Coast cities, while the NBL featured teams in smaller Midwestern markets. Merging the leagues aimed to stabilize player salaries and consolidate the sport under a unified banner.
The newly formed NBA began its inaugural season in 1949-1950 with seventeen teams, including the Indianapolis Olympians, which featured players from the University of Kentucky's Olympic team. The Minneapolis Lakers, led by star player George Mikan, clinched the first NBA championship. Initially, the league was exclusively white, despite the popularity of the all-black Harlem Globetrotters, who often performed exhibition games prior to NBA matchups. The reluctance of NBA owners to sign African American players stemmed from concerns over the Globetrotters' influence and their own fanbase. The NBA's beginnings mark a significant chapter in American sports history, reflecting the dynamics of race, regional popularity, and the evolving landscape of professional basketball.
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National Basketball Association begins
Identification Professional sports league
Date Formed by a merger on August 3, 1949
The National Basketball Association began slowly during the late 1940’s but would become a major presence in American sports during the 1950’s and eventually become one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the world.
During the late 1940’s, American basketball was a sport whose college games and players were followed by fans and covered by the news media far more closely than the professional version of the sport. Basketball fans were most familiar with the top players on regional college teams, particularly in Kentucky, Indiana, and New York City. They were far more likely to know the players on the teams of the two professional leagues—the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which was based in the East, and the National Basketball League (NBL), whose teams were based in the Midwest. The pro teams featured players few fans had read about or seen in college because they were not local. In the shadow of Major League Baseball, pro basketball was a distinctly minor league sport, and it was also far less popular than college football.
Teams of the BAA, which had formed in 1946, were based in Baltimore, Washington, New York, St. Louis, and Boston. Teams in the older NBL were in mostly smaller markets, such as Anderson, Indiana; Denver, Colorado; Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Syracuse, New York; the Tri-Cities bloc of Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa; and Waterloo, Iowa. Star players such as Bob Davies and the giant center George Mikan had benefited from the rivalry between the leagues to secure generous contracts for themselves on the grounds that they could switch leagues if teams did not compensate them fairly. At that time, their annual salaries of twelve thousand dollars per year were considered exorbitant. Merging the two leagues would make it easier to hold player salaries in check.
Eventually, owners of the NBL teams determined that they would benefit by merging their league with the eastern teams of the BAA. The eastern teams had several advantages over those in the Midwest: The nation’s leading newspapers were in the East, as were the premier arenas, such as New York’s Madison Square Garden. In a parting shot, the NBL showed signs of life by creating a new team called the Indianapolis Olympians, whose players were almost all from the University of Kentucky’s national college champion team, which had just played in the 1948 London Olympic games. In 1949, owners in both leagues agreed to the merger, with the Indianapolis Olympians included.
Birth of the NBA
Combining the names of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America, the newly merged league was called the National Basketball Association. Seventeen teams played their first season under this name in 1949-1950, divided among Eastern, Central, and Western divisions. Led by George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers, the reigning BAA champions, won the first “NBA” championship.
Although nothing in the league rules forbade African American players, all the players in the league at its start were white. Ironically, one of the most popular attractions of the new league was its ability to stage exhibition games before its own games featuring the most famous basketball team in the United States—the Harlem Globetrotters, whose players were all black. The Globetrotters had all the top black players in the country, and fans flocked to watch their preliminary games. Often, when the less-known NBA players took the court for their regular games, many fans would leave. One apparent reason that NBA team owners were reluctant to sign black players was their fear of angering the owner of the Globetrotters, Abe Saperstein, who might retaliate by refusing to schedule the exhibition games that helped draw fans to NBA arenas.
Bibliography
Bayne, Bijan C. Sky Kings: Black Pioneers of Professional Basketball. Danbury, Conn.: Scholastic, 1997.
Hubbard, Jan. The Official NBA Encyclopedia. 3d ed. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
Koppett, Leonard. Twenty-four Seconds to Shoot: The Birth and Improbable Rise of the NBA. New York: Sport Media, 1968.
Peterson, Robert W. Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball’s Early Years. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.