After a damaging three-year battle to win both players and fans, the rival Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) merge to form the National Basketball Association (NBA), on 3 August, 1949.
Incorporated in 1946, the Basketball Association of America which established itself in bigger cities, challenged the hegemony of the nine-year old National Basketball League, which existed only in small Midwestern cities like Forte Wayne, Sheboygan and Akron. While the National Basketball League held its games in small gymnasiums, the upstart Basketball Association of America, played its games in large major-market arenas such as the Boston Garden and New York City’s Madison Square Garden. By the 1948-49 season, the Basketball Association of America had begun to attract some of the country’s best players, and four National Basketball League franchises—Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Rochester—moved to the Basketball Association of America, bringing their star players with them. George Mikan, the biggest attraction in either league who by himself could virtually assure a team’s success, defected to the new league with the Minneapolis Lakers.
On this day in 1949, representatives from the two leagues met at the Basketball Association of America offices in New York’s Empire State Building to put finishing talk on the merger. Maurice Podoloff, the pioneer head of the Basketball Association of America, was elected head of the new merger league, the National Basketball Association which was made up of 17 teams that represented both small towns and large cities across the country. Through the 1950s, though, the number of teams dwindled, along with fan support, and by the 1954-55 season, only eight teams remained. That year, the league transformed the game with the creation of the 24-second clock, making play faster-paced and more fun to watch. Fans returned, and the league, now financially solvent, expanded throughout the 1960s and '70s. Today,
The 73 year old NBA today, has drawn players and millions of fans from countries around the world.
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