Can basketball be a force that helps bring together a divided nation, a divided world?
It’s the World Basketball Day dream. A day – designated by the United Nations to be commemorated every December 21 – where we celebrate the power of basketball to unite communities and connect people around the world.
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“There are fewer and fewer spaces left where we humanize ourselves, where we spend time face to face, making eye contact, negotiating, sharing and creating space with each other — doing the kind of intimate, continuous, fluid communication that the space of a basketball court fosters,” said David Hollander, an NYU professor who helped create World Basketball Day. “Gaming itself is a laboratory for empathy. And so, yes, I believe it’s one of the greatest exercises that people can engage in to begin to rebuild the social fabric.”
It’s a dream shared by the NBA and basketball fans around the world, and it’s a chance to give back to the community through the game.
“World Basketball Day is an opportunity to celebrate the game and its impact on people around the world,” said Jayson Tatum of the Celtics. “Basketball has had a very positive influence on my life and I hope to pass on the joy and skills I have learned, on and off the court, to the next generation.”
The NBA is doing this in part by announcing an expansion of its long-standing relationship with the YMCA, collaborating on a year-long youth basketball program and community programs that will reach 6 million young people next year. World Basketball Day also means events to connect with young people across the country and around the world.
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“World Basketball Day takes on special significance this year as we commemorate the 175th anniversary of the YMCA, where the sport was invented 134 years ago,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. “We are thrilled to join our many friends in the basketball community to celebrate the impact and influence of this game across the world.”
What is World Basketball Day?
Global Basketball Day is the brainchild of Hollander, a professor at NYU at the Preston Robert Tisch Institute for Global Sport. Holland teaches a course at NYU called “How Basketball Can Save the World.”
“It’s a very popular elective that treats basketball as a philosophy,” Hollander said. “I created principles that I believe basketball represents: the way you play basketball can be understood as a very good guide for how we can relate to each other. The way the game was supposed to be structured can tell us a lot about how we should structure a society, and it is an inherently hopeful game.”
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He finally I turned this course into a bookin which he authored a UN resolution for World Basketball Day. This idea took off in a way he didn’t really expect.
“From the beginning, basketball was always intended to be stateless, borderless and global,” Hollander said. “And as the world tries to solve the problems that only the whole world can solve, I suggested that we should start somewhere where the whole world is happy and where the whole world comes together and where the whole world agrees. And, I said, that place is basketball, and there should be a day.
“That’s how it started.”
World Basketball Day was established in 2023 by the United Nations. It is no coincidence that World Basketball Day is celebrated each year on December 21, the date in 1891 when Dr. James Naismith hung the peach baskets and first introduced basketball at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.
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Part of what World Basketball Day has become is focusing on the future and connecting people. For example, last week was the third annual UN Diplomats Basketball Game, where more than 60 diplomats from 30 countries played at the local YMCA.
“In other words, these peacemakers are actually doing what I hope basketball will achieve on a grand scale,” Hollander said.
It’s not just the NBA and the United States that celebrate, it’s also FIBA – basketball’s international governing body – and its coaching clinics and camps in Africa on this day. These are local players and content creators from Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines who present World Basketball Day content on localized NBA channels in those countries.
“Basketball has always been global,” Hollander said. “Dr. James Naismith sent emissaries to teach basketball in 1895, as soon as he could, just after he invented the game, to Europe, Australia, China and South America. So it is no surprise to me that from all four corners of the world came some of the most eloquent speakers of the language of basketball.”
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This language of basketball and the way it can be a unifying force is worth celebrating. And, just like Christmas, we could use more of that strength and spirit throughout the year.
