College sports are incredibly popular in America. In news programs, both on local and national channels, college sports are given as much space as professional ones. On average, US universities participate in 20 sports, and in total about 400 thousand students take part in various athletic programs in the country. They are assigned to university teams officially registered with the student sports association.
Another two million American students play sports as members of unaffiliated clubs.
US sports at university
Collegiate sports in America have come a long way to become so popular in the States. The beginning was laid in 1843, when a boat club was organized at Yale University. A year later, a boat club was formed at Harvard as well. Teams of universities began to hold competitions among themselves. In the 50s of the 19th century, baseball began to gain popularity in American universities. After the students of American universities, more and more attention began to be paid to athletics and rugby, American football.
Today, American football is the most popular playing sport in the United States. Special stadiums designed for games between university teams are built on each campus. On the days when these stadiums host matches, thousands of people gather here. Those who do not have enough seats in the stadium set up a bivouac nearby, turn on the receivers and watch the match with a large company. To take the best places, they arrive the night before and leave the site on the evening of the next day after the match.
Naturally, a sports festival held in this format is not complete without cooking and eating hot dogs, sausages, chicken wings and other popular American food.
Basketball is the great love of Americans
Not only the United States, but the whole world is passionate about basketball, but nowhere, like in the States, do they give themselves up to this sports game with such passion. The history of basketball in America began in the late 19th century. Then, in one of the colleges in Massachusetts, the leadership turned to one of their teachers, a certain James Nesmith, with a request to come up with some kind of activity for students in the winter so that they would not have to go out into the cold outside, but could study in the hall. And he came up with! And everyone liked this game so much that basketball began to gain rapid popularity. If the first basketball game took place in 1891, then already in 1898 the first professional basketball league was created in the country.
Basketball in the USA, NBA
Almost immediately after the birth of basketball, women began to play it, however, the rules of the game were slightly modified for them.
In 1904, just 13 years after the emergence of this sport, the basketball tournament was held as part of the Olympic Games, however, then it did not make it into the official program. It was included in the Olympics only in 1936, when Nazi Berlin met the Olympians. And then the basketball players of the United States won their first medals at the Olympics.
A year later, the National Basketball League (NBA) appeared. Interest in basketball was so huge that business representatives began to pay attention to it, believing that big money would come from this game in the future. They became sponsors of the National Basketball League. Sponsors were also found for the National Basketball Association, which arose in 1949.
The NBA currently has 29 teams representing the United States and Canada. They compete in the Eastern and Western conferences. At the end of the basketball season, the conference winners meet in a series of games to determine the NBA champion team.