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.
