Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

is a popular participation and spectator sport played both indoors and outdoors. According to Ausplay, in 2024 1,056,012 Australian adults play basketball making it the second highest team participation sport in the country. Around 4.6% of Australian adults, and 6.7% of Australian children play basketball. Over a quarter of Australian basketballers are female. Basketball in Australia experienced a golden age in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, during which the National Basketball League saw its halcyon days. However, its popularity, media attention, attendance, and corporate support deteriorated during the 2000s. From the mid-2010s, the sport saw renewed interest following a record number of Australians playing in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(NBA) in the United States.

History

The first press reference to a game of basketball in Australia is from ''

The Adelaide Advertiser ''The Advertiser'' is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format newspaper based in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. First published as a broadsheet named ''The South Australian Advertiser'' on 12 July 1858,

''. The paper reported on Wednesday 17 February 1897 that the following Tuesday at the opening of

Our Boys Institute Our Boys Institute (OBI) was a junior branch of YMCA in South Australia, catering for boys aged 13–18, a forerunner to the various youth groups which flourished in the first half of the twentieth century such as the Boys' Brigade, Scouting, e ...

, said to be the largest gymnasium in the colonies, OBI would play YMCA in the first exhibition of basketball in South Australia. There is no evidence of any game being played earlier elsewhere, thus the first game of basketball was played in Australia on Tuesday 23 February 1897. The game occurred six years after the invention of the sport on 21 December 1891 by Canadian

James Naismith James Naismith (; November 6, 1861November 28, 1939) was a Scottish-Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach, best known as the inventor of the game of basketball. After moving to the United State ...

, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (YMCA) in Springfield, Massachusetts. OBI and the YMCA continued to be at the forefront of the development of Adelaide basketball. More than 120 years later, basketball is one of the most popular participation sports in the country.

National League

The National Basketball League ( NBL), which began in 1979, is the top-level men's basketball competition in Australia. The sport experienced rapid growth in the 1980s with the influx of American players. National competition became popular in the major cities. By the late 1990s, basketball in Australia went into sharp decline. According to

Adelaide 36ers The Adelaide 36ers are an Australian professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL). The 36ers are the only team in the league representing the state of South Australia and are based in the state's capital of Adela ...

championship coach Phil Smyth, Australian basketball administrators rested on their laurels during the 1990s. "They let the brand get damaged," Smyth said. "It's that old saying 'if you keep doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result, you're a fool — and basketball was foolish." During the 2000s, interest in the NBL dwindled, with many teams folding, audience attendance fluctuating, and the league's TV presence inconsistent. In 2015, a record number of Australians playing in the NBA led to a renewed popularity in the sport and showed Australians still loved basketball but were unsure about the national version. However, by the late 2010s and early 2020s, renewed interest in the league saw all-time attendance records be broken.

National teams

The Boomers are the men's basketball team which represents Australia in international competitions. As of 2022, the Boomers have won 19

FIBA Oceania Championship FIBA Oceania Championship was the Oceania basketball championships that took place every two years between national teams of the continent. It was also the qualifying tournament for the Basketball World Cups and Olympic Games. The first editio ...

s (no longer contested), one

FIBA Asia Cup The FIBA Asia Cup (formerly the FIBA Asia Championship and ABC Championship) is an international basketball tournament which takes place every four years between the men's national teams of Asia and Oceania. Through the 2015 edition, the t ...

, one

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...

Gold Medal in

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

and one Bronze Medal at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

in Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Until winning the Bronze in Tokyo, their best finish being fourth place at the Olympics in 1988,

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

and

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

, and fourth at the

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

World Cup. The women's national team is the

Opals Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silicon dioxide, silica (SiO2·''n''H2O); its water content may range from 3% to 21% by weight, but is usually between 6% and 10%. Due to the amorphous (chemical) physical structure, it is classified as a ...

. They have won Olympic silver in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

and

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

, Olympic bronze in

and

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

, as well as gold at the

2006 FIBA World Championship The 2006 FIBA World Championship was the 15th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's national teams. The tournament was hosted by Japan and held from 19 August to 3 September 2006. It was co-organised b ...

and bronze at the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

and

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

World Cups.

League system

;Men ;Women

Australians in the NBA

The

(NBA) in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

has a number of Australian players. The NBA also has a large following in Australia. The majority of players on the roster for the

Australia men's national basketball team The Australia men's national basketball team, nicknamed the Boomers after the slang term for a male kangaroo, represents Australia in international basketball competition. Since the late 1980s, Australia has placed among the world elite teams, ...

(nicknamed the "Boomers") currently play in the NBA.

Current players

References

External links

Basketball Australia official website

NBL official website

WNBL official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basketball In Australia