First Professional Basketball Game Historical Marker
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
This small plaque located just behind the benches for the city bus stop designates the location of the first "professional" basketball game. The title of the plaque can be misleading, however, as the athletes were not professional players, but rather the first to receive pay for playing. The game was played at the Masonic Temple Hall on November 7, 1896 and featured the Trenton YMCA against the Brooklyn YMCA. Fred Cooper, Team Captain for the Trentons, organized the game and his side won the game by the score of 15-1 with the help a paid athletes who might be considered "ringers." The game inspired other teams to pay players and within two years of this game there were professional teams and the origins of modern professional basketball leagues.
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Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The Trentons won the game and within a few years, several teams from the Philadelphia and New Jersey areas joined together to form a league that later inspired the modern professional leagues of today. The Trentons won that league's first championship in 1899. The success of this league inspired other leagues began to form across the East Coast.
Many of the new leagues only lasted a few weeks and the National Basketball League that featured Trenton and other teams only lasted five seasons. The sport of basketball's growth can be attributed mostly to colleges who began sponsoring basketball games. Professional leagues came and went throughout the first half of the 20th century. Independent teams (known as barnstormers) had more success as they traveled around the country preforming in venues. One such barnstorming team became world-famous, the Harlem Globetrotters.
Sources
"The History of Basketball." Timetoast.com. Accessed June 28, 2017. https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/the-history-of-basketball.