World Basketball Day
Next: December 21, 2026
One ball, two hoops, everyone in.
The story
Where it comes from
On 25 August 2023 the UN General Assembly proclaimed 21 December World Basketball Day, adopting without a vote a resolution led by the Philippines, whose ambassador told the Assembly that basketball is 'in our national DNA'. The vote fell on the opening day of the Basketball World Cup, co-hosted by the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan. The date is the game's birthday: on 21 December 1891, at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Canadian teacher James Naismith's students played basketball for the first time.
How it's celebrated
The resolution encourages everyone, everywhere, to play, watch, read about or talk about basketball, and invites governments, schools and sports bodies to mark the day with educational and awareness activities. The simplest way to join in is to get a game going: a pickup match after work, a free-throw contest with the children, or a card to the friend who always beats you one-on-one.
Did you know
- FIBA, the sport's world governing body, estimates that at least 450 million people play basketball.
- Women were playing basketball by 1892, less than a year after the game was invented, but women's basketball did not join the Olympics until the 1976 Montreal Games.
- The UN's page for the day quotes China's Yao Ming: 'Sport is the best means of communication between people from different religions and countries.'
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