There are some pretty hot debates over which sport is, of all of them, the quintessentially American sport. There’s football, of course, and baseball. But when it comes to cultural impact, it’s hard to look beyond the meteoric rise of basketball and just how deeply ingrained with the fabric of the US that it is. Here, we’re going to look at the impacts basketball has had beyond the same itself, and how it has shaped a generation of fans and people who are, if anything, only tangentially tied to the sport.

The democratization of sport

You can’t talk about the basketball court without talking about how it opened up the way for a lot of people to participate in sports in ways they might not have before. When it comes to football and baseball, there’s a need for a field, which requires space that simply isn’t available in many urban areas. Basketball courts fit into urban areas without any problem and, as such, a lot of kids were able to grow up playing in their local courts, taking that passion with them to school and, if lucky, on to the college and the professional level. Basketball made sports available to those in the city who didn’t have the opportunity before and, as such, has very much become the game of urban America.

The high-profile sport

All sports have long had celebrity tie-ins. The NHL and NFL both have their fair share of celebrity fans. However, there are few celebrity social pools as active as the courtside of the Lakers or Knicks courts, for instance. Which high-profile fans attend what games and what they do there has become both an intrinsic part of celebrity culture and basketball culture in America. While the widely available nature of basketball shows its accessible nature, this part of it shows how aspirational it is, showcasing the idea that anyone can be there with people like Jay-Z, Jack Nicholson, Spike Lee, and much more, if they apply themselves and rise to the highest levels of the sport (or just get really good seats.)

Fancy footwork

When they are out on the courts, basketball players need to make some of the most complex footwork-based maneuvers you are likely to see in any sport. The ability to stop on a dime and dance around opponents, shifting momentum from one moment to the next, requires the right pair of kicks. When it comes to kicks, you only need to look at the iconic sneaker moments of the NBA to see how much basketball has influenced fashion. Few might have reached the heights of Air Jordans, but there have been plenty of ballers who have left their mark on the world of sneakers. From street fashion to everyday practical wear, we’ve all felt those imprints.

The move to integration

Basketball is now known as a game with important ties to the African-Americans who play and watch the sport. Interestingly, black players weren’t allowed to play in NBA games until Earl Lloyd opened the way in 1950, playing with the Washington Capitals. Nowadays, it’s not difficult to see that the sport is dominated by African-American players. Many have argued the basketball has done a lot to turn black American athletes into ambassadors for the whole nation, given how global the sport would later become. As such, people of color started to become a lot more acceptable to the US masses on TV and in their sports, an important step in the long, on-going journey from segregation to inclusion.

The global sport

Basketball might have done some good in the process of healing cultural rifts within the US, but it might be doing even more across the planet. The latest and most noteworthy example of this in the 7’6” center for the Houston Rockets, Yao Ming. Ming, a Chinese national, was the first draft choice in the NBA that had zero US basketball experience and the negotiations and agreement that followed have introduced NBA to a much broader market of global players. Their new program Basketball Without Borders shows just how much reach the sport has across the world, using it as a platform to enact social change anywhere on the planet.

If you want to see how important a sport is to the nation, then you don’t look at viewership numbers, you look at the imprint it has left on culture. By that standard, basketball puts up some pretty good competition for naming itself the quintessential American sport.