Basketball in Australia
| Basketball in Australia | |
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Sydney Kings in the NBL
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| Country | Australia |
| Governing body | Basketball Australia |
| National team | Australia |
| Nickname(s) | Boomers (Men) Opals (Women) |
| First played | 1900, Adelaide, South Australia |
| Registered players | ? (total) 161,200 (adult) |
| Clubs | 415 (Men) 79 (Women) 638 (Total) |
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National competitions
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Club competitions
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Audience records
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| Single match | 17,803 (1999) NBL: Sydney Kings v West Sydney Razorbacks (Sydney Super Dome) |
| Season | 725,494 - 2003-04 NBL season |
Basketball is a sport played both indoors and outdoors in Australia. Basketball remains one of the most popular participation sports in Australia, having a larger participation base than Cricket, Rugby league and Rugby union. In Victoria, it is experiencing a large participation boom for youths and is the largest participation sport in that state. It was one of the most popular spectator sports in the early to mid-1990s, however its spectator popularity has hugely declined since then.
Australia has produced several professional basketballers for major overseas leagues.
The sport does retain a notable presence and international matches attract some media attention.
The first basketball match was played in Adelaide, at the Old Boys' Institute (OBI) on Wakefield St in 1897, between the OBI and Semaphores Boys Club. It took two decades for the first association to be established in Victoria in the 1920s.
Basketball grew steadily throughout the 20th century.
The National Basketball League (NBL) is the top-level men's basketball competition, which began in 1979.
The Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) is the top women's basketball league, having begun in 1981.
The sport experienced rapid growth in the late 1980s as young people became more interested in American culture. Wearing basketball jerseys became a fashion statement for many teenagers and basketball hoops proliferated in the backyards and basketball courts were, and still are, common at schools.
Capitalising on growing interest in the sport, the national competition became a huge hit in the major cities, providing a full entertainment package. Participation boomed and key people in the football codes, particularly Australian rules football began to express concern that it present a drain on talent in the Australian Football League (AFL) due to players looking for bigger money playing basketball in the United States. A few players including Luc Longley, Andrew Gaze, Shane Heal, Chris Anstey, Andrew Bogut, Lauren Jackson, Patrick Mills, Bailey Weaver, Dante Exum and Matthew Dellavedova did actually make it big internationally, becoming poster figures for the sport in Australia.
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Wikipedia