Baseball

BaseballBaseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team (batting team) is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team (referred to as the fielding team) is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners advancing around the bases.[2] A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate (the place where the player started as a batter).

The initial objective of the batting team is to have a player reach first base safely; this occurs either when the batter hits the ball and reaches first base before an opponent retrieves the ball and touches the base, or when the pitcher persists in throwing the ball out of the batter's reach. Players on the batting team who reach first base without being called "out" can attempt to advance to subsequent bases as a runner, either immediately or during teammates' turns batting. The fielding team tries to prevent runs by using the ball to get batters or runners "out", which forces them out of the field of play. The pitcher can get the batter out by throwing three pitches which result in strikes, while fielders can get the batter out by catching a batted ball before it touches the ground, and can get a runner out by tagging them with the ball while the runner is not touching a base.

The opposing teams switch back and forth between batting and fielding; the batting team's turn to bat is over once the fielding team records three outs. One turn batting for each team constitutes an inning. A game is usually composed of nine innings, and the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. Most games end after the ninth inning, but if scores are tied at that point, extra innings are usually played. Baseball has no game clock, though some competitions feature pace-of-play regulations such as a pitch clock to shorten game time.

Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. Baseball's American origins, as well as its reputation as a source of escapism during troubled points in American history such as the American Civil War and the Great Depression, have led the sport to receive the moniker of "America's Pastime"; since the late 19th century, it has been unofficially recognized as the national sport of the United States, though in modern times is considered less popular than other sports, such as American football. In addition to North America, baseball spread throughout the rest of the Americas and the Asia–Pacific in the 19th and 20th centuries,[3] and is now considered the most popular sport in parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL), each with three divisions: East, West, and Central. The MLB champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. The top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world. Baseball was played at the Olympic Games from 1992 to 2008, and was reinstated on a one-off basis in 2020.

Rules and gameplay

Further information: Baseball rules and Outline of baseball

Overview

A baseball game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense (batting and baserunning) and defense (pitching and fielding). A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings (seven innings at the high school level and in doubleheaders in college, Minor League Baseball and, since the 2020 season, Major League Baseball; and six innings at the Little League level).[4] One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning. The other team—customarily the home team—bats in the bottom, or second half, of every inning.

The goal of the game is to score more points (runs) than the other team. The players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by touching all four bases, in order, set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must attempt to safely reach a base before proceeding, counterclockwise, from first base, to second base, third base, and back home to score a run. The team in the field attempts to prevent runs from scoring by recording outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action until their next turn at bat comes up again. When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games, particularly unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings.[5]

The game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the 270-degree area outside them is foul territory. The part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield; the area farther beyond the infield is the outfield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate (the rubber) at its center. The outer boundary of the outfield is typically demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height. The fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well.[6]

There are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, and the glove or mitt:

• The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches (23 centimeters) in circumference. It has a rubber or cork center, wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching.[7]

• The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a single, solid piece of wood. Other materials are now commonly used for nonprofessional games. It is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are typically around 34 inches (86 centimeters) long, and not longer than 42 inches (110 centimeters).[8]

• The glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of different fielding positions.[9]

Protective helmets are also standard equipment for all batters.[10]

Fielding positions

At the beginning of each half-inning, the nine players of the fielding team arrange themselves around the field. One of them, the pitcher, stands on the pitcher's mound. The pitcher begins the pitching delivery with one foot on the rubber, pushing off it to gain velocity when throwing toward home plate. Another fielding team player, the catcher, squats on the far side of home plate, facing the pitcher. The rest of the fielding team faces home plate, typically arranged as four infielders—who set up along or within a few yards outside the imaginary lines (basepaths) between first, second, and third base—and three outfielders. In the standard arrangement, there is a first baseman positioned several steps to the left of first base, a second baseman to the right of second base, a shortstop to the left of second base, and a third baseman to the right of third base. The basic outfield positions are left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. With the exception of the catcher, all fielders are required to be in fair territory when the pitch is delivered. A neutral umpire sets up behind the catcher.[11] Other umpires will be distributed around the field as well.[12]

Offense

Play starts with a member of the batting team, the batter, standing in either of the two batter's boxes next to home plate, holding a bat.[13] The batter waits for the pitcher to throw a pitch (the ball) toward home plate, and attempts to hit the ball[14] with the bat.[13] The catcher catches pitches that the batter does not hit—as a result of either electing not to swing or failing to connect—and returns them to the pitcher. A batter who hits the ball into the field of play must drop the bat and begin running toward first base, at which point the player is referred to as a runner (or, until the play is over, a batter-runner).

A batter-runner who reaches first base without being put out is said to be safe and is on base. A batter-runner may choose to remain at first base or attempt to advance to second base or even beyond—however far the player believes can be reached safely. A player who reaches base despite proper play by the fielders has recorded a hit. A player who reaches first base safely on a hit is credited with a single. If a player makes it to second base safely as a direct result of a hit, it is a double; third base, a triple. If the ball is hit in the air within the foul lines over the entire outfield (and outfield fence, if there is one), or if the batter-runner otherwise safely circles all the bases, it is a home run: the batter and any runners on base may all freely circle the bases, each scoring a run. This is the most desirable result for the batter. The ultimate and most desirable result possible for a batter would be to hit a home run while all three bases are occupied or "loaded", thus scoring four runs on a single hit. This is called a grand slam. A player who reaches base due to a fielding mistake is not credited with a hit—instead, the responsible fielder is charged with an error.[13]

Any runners already on base may attempt to advance on batted balls that land, or contact the ground, in fair territory, before or after the ball lands. A runner on first base must attempt to advance if a ball lands in play, as only one runner may occupy a base at any given time; the same applies for other runners if they are on a base that a teammate is forced to advance to. If a ball hit into play rolls foul before passing through the infield, it becomes dead and any runners must return to the base they occupied when the play began. If the ball is hit in the air and caught before it lands, the batter has flied out and any runners on base may attempt to advance only if they tag up (contact the base they occupied when the play began, as or after the ball is caught). Runners may also attempt to advance to the next base while the pitcher is in the process of delivering the ball to home plate; a successful effort is a stolen base.[15]

Defense

A pitch that is not hit into the field of play is called either a strike or a ball. A batter against whom three strikes are recorded strikes out. A batter against whom four balls are recorded is awarded a base on balls or walk, a free advance to first base. (A batter may also freely advance to first base if the batter's body or uniform is struck by a pitch outside the strike zone, provided the batter does not swing and attempts to avoid being hit.)[16] Crucial to determining balls and strikes is the umpire's judgment as to whether a pitch has passed through the strike zone, a conceptual area above home plate extending from the midpoint between the batter's shoulders and belt down to the hollow of the knee.[17] Any pitch which does not pass through the strike zone is called a ball, unless the batter either swings and misses at the pitch, or hits the pitch into foul territory; an exception generally occurs if the ball is hit into foul territory when the batter already has two strikes, in which case neither a ball nor a strike is called.

While the team at bat is trying to score runs, the team in the field is attempting to record outs. In addition to the strikeout and flyout, common ways a member of the batting team may be put out include the ground out, force out, and tag out. These occur either when a runner is forced to advance to a base, and a fielder with possession of the ball reaches that base before the runner does, or the runner is touched by the ball, held in a fielder's hand, while not on a base. (The batter-runner is always forced to advance to first base, and any other runners must advance to the next base if a teammate is forced to advance to their base.) It is possible to record two outs in the course of the same play. This is called a double play. Three outs in one play, a triple play, is possible, though rare. Players put out or retired must leave the field, returning to their team's dugout or bench. A runner may be stranded on base when a third out is recorded against another player on the team. Stranded runners do not benefit the team in its next turn at bat as every half-inning begins with the bases empty.[18]

Batting order and substitution

An individual player's turn batting or plate appearance is complete when the player reaches base, hits a home run, makes an out, or hits a ball that results in the team's third out, even if it is recorded against a teammate. On rare occasions, a batter may be at the plate when, without the batter's hitting the ball, a third out is recorded against a teammate—for instance, a runner getting caught stealing (tagged out attempting to steal a base). A batter with this sort of incomplete plate appearance starts off the team's next turn batting; any balls or strikes recorded against the batter the previous inning are erased.

A runner may circle the bases only once per plate appearance and thus can score at most a single run per batting turn. Once a player has completed a plate appearance, that player may not bat again until the eight other members of the player's team have all taken their turn at bat in the batting order. The batting order is set before the game begins, and may not be altered except for substitutions. Once a player has been removed for a substitute, that player may not reenter the game. Children's games often have more lenient rules, such as Little League rules, which allow players to be substituted back into the same game.[4][19]

If the designated hitter (DH) rule is in effect, each team has a tenth player whose sole responsibility is to bat (and run). The DH takes the place of another player—almost invariably the pitcher—in the batting order, but does not field. Thus, even with the DH, each team still has a batting order of nine players and a fielding arrangement of nine players.[20]

Personnel

See also: Baseball positions

Players

See also the categories Baseball players and Lists of baseball players

The number of players on a baseball roster, or squad, varies by league and by the level of organized play. A Major League Baseball (MLB) team has a roster of 26 players with specific roles. A typical roster features the following players:[21]

• Eight position players: the catcher, four infielders, and three outfielders—all of whom play on a regular basis

• Five starting pitchers who constitute the team's pitching rotation or starting rotation

• Seven relief pitchers, including one closer, who constitute the team's bullpen (named for the off-field area where pitchers warm up)

• One backup, or substitute, catcher

• Five backup infielders and backup outfielders, or players who can play multiple positions, known as utility players.

Most baseball leagues worldwide have the DH rule, including MLB, Japan's Pacific League, and Caribbean professional leagues, along with major American amateur organizations.[22] The Central League in Japan does not have the rule and high-level minor league clubs connected to National League teams are not required to field a DH.[23] In leagues that apply the designated hitter rule, a typical team has nine offensive regulars (including the DH), five starting pitchers,[24] seven or eight relievers, a backup catcher, and two or three other reserve players.[25][26]

Managers and coaches

The manager, or head coach, oversees the team's major strategic decisions, such as establishing the starting rotation, setting the lineup, or batting order, before each game, and making substitutions during games—in particular, bringing in relief pitchers. Managers are typically assisted by two or more coaches; they may have specialized responsibilities, such as working with players on hitting, fielding, pitching, or strength and conditioning. At most levels of organized play, two coaches are stationed on the field when the team is at bat: the first base coach and third base coach, who occupy designated coaches' boxes, just outside the foul lines. These coaches assist in the direction of baserunners, when the ball is in play, and relay tactical signals from the manager to batters and runners, during pauses in play.[27] In contrast to many other team sports, baseball managers and coaches generally wear their team's uniforms; coaches must be in uniform to be allowed on the field to confer with players during a game.[28]

Umpires

Any baseball game involves one or more umpires, who make rulings on the outcome of each play. At a minimum, one umpire will stand behind the catcher, to have a good view of the strike zone, and call balls and strikes. Additional umpires may be stationed near the other bases, thus making it easier to judge plays such as attempted force outs and tag outs. In MLB, four umpires are used for each game, one near each base. In the playoffs, six umpires are used: one at each base and two in the outfield along the foul lines.[29]

Strategy

See also: Baseball positioning

Many of the pre-game and in-game strategic decisions in baseball revolve around a fundamental fact: in general, right-handed batters tend to be more successful against left-handed pitchers and, to an even greater degree, left-handed batters tend to be more successful against right-handed pitchers.[30] A manager with several left-handed batters in the regular lineup, who knows the team will be facing a left-handed starting pitcher, may respond by starting one or more of the right-handed backups on the team's roster. During the late innings of a game, as relief pitchers and pinch hitters are brought in, the opposing managers will often go back and forth trying to create favorable matchups with their substitutions. The manager of the fielding team trying to arrange same-handed pitcher-batter matchups and the manager of the batting team trying to arrange opposite-handed matchups. With a team that has the lead in the late innings, a manager may remove a starting position player—especially one whose turn at bat is not likely to come up again—for a more skillful fielder (known as a defensive substitution).[31]

Tactics

Pitching and fielding

See also: Pitch (baseball)

The tactical decision that precedes almost every play in a baseball game involves pitch selection.[32] By gripping and then releasing the baseball in a certain manner, and by throwing it at a certain speed, pitchers can cause the baseball to break to either side, or downward, as it approaches the batter, thus creating differing pitches that can be selected.[33] Among the resulting wide variety of pitches that may be thrown, the four basic types are the fastball, the changeup (or off-speed pitch), and two breaking balls—the curveball and the slider.[34] Pitchers have different repertoires of pitches they are skillful at throwing. Conventionally, before each pitch, the catcher signals the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, as well as its general vertical or horizontal location.[35] If there is disagreement on the selection, the pitcher may shake off the sign and the catcher will call for a different pitch.

With a runner on base and taking a lead, the pitcher may attempt a pickoff, a quick throw to a fielder covering the base to keep the runner's lead in check or, optimally, effect a tag out.[36] Pickoff attempts, however, are subject to rules that severely restrict the pitcher's movements before and during the pickoff attempt. Violation of any one of these rules could result in the umpire calling a balk against the pitcher, which permits any runners on base to advance one base with impunity.[37] If an attempted stolen base is anticipated, the catcher may call for a pitchout, a ball thrown deliberately off the plate, allowing the catcher to catch it while standing and throw quickly to a base.[38] Facing a batter with a strong tendency to hit to one side of the field, the fielding team may employ a shift, with most or all of the fielders moving to the left or right of their usual positions. With a runner on third base, the infielders may play in, moving closer to home plate to improve the odds of throwing out the runner on a ground ball, though a sharply hit grounder is more likely to carry through a drawn-in infield.[39]

Batting and baserunning\

Several basic offensive tactics come into play with a runner on first base, including the fundamental choice of whether to attempt a steal of second base. The hit and run is sometimes employed, with a skillful contact hitter, the runner takes off with the pitch, drawing the shortstop or second baseman over to second base, creating a gap in the infield for the batter to poke the ball through.[40] The sacrifice bunt, calls for the batter to focus on making soft contact with the ball, so that it rolls a short distance into the infield, allowing the runner to advance into scoring position as the batter is thrown out at first. A batter, particularly one who is a fast runner, may also attempt to bunt for a hit. A sacrifice bunt employed with a runner on third base, aimed at bringing that runner home, is known as a squeeze play.[41] With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, a batter may instead concentrate on hitting a fly ball that, even if it is caught, will be deep enough to allow the runner to tag up and score—a successful batter, in this case, gets credit for a sacrifice fly.[39] In order to increase the chance of advancing a batter to first base via a walk, the manager will sometimes signal a batter who is ahead in the count (i.e., has more balls than strikes) to take, or not swing at, the next pitch. The batter's potential reward of reaching base (via a walk) exceeds the disadvantage if the next pitch is a strike.[42]

History

Main article: History of baseball

Further information: Origins of baseball

Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular among children in Great Britain and Ireland.[43][44][45] American baseball historian David Block suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. According to Block and John Thorn, official MLB historian, this earlier version of baseball may have involved hitting the ball with a hand, making it akin to today's punchball.[46][47] Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and "tut-ball".[43] The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery.[48] Block discovered that the first recorded game of "Base Ball"[49] took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player.[50] This early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants.[51]

By the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being played around North America.[56] The first officially recorded baseball game in North America was played in Beachville, Ontario, Canada, on June 4, 1838.[57] In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, led the codification of the so-called Knickerbocker Rules,[58] which in turn were based on rules developed in 1837 by William R. Wheaton of the Gotham Club.[59] While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings.[60] With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century.[61] The game then went on to spread throughout the Pacific Rim and the Americas,[62][63] with Americans backing the sport as a way to spread American values.[64]

In the United States

Further information: Baseball in the United States and History of baseball in the United States

Establishment of professional leagues

In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area,[65] and by 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the "national pastime" or "national game".[66] A year later, the sport's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players, was formed. In 1867, it barred participation by African Americans.[67] The more formally structured National League was founded in 1876.[68] Professional Negro leagues formed, but quickly folded.[69] In 1887, softball, under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented as a winter version of the parent game.[70] The National League's first successful counterpart, the American League, which evolved from the minor Western League, was established in 1893, and virtually all of the modern baseball rules were in place by then.[71][72]

The National Agreement of 1903 formalized relations both between the two major leagues and between them and the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of the country's minor professional leagues.[73] The World Series, pitting the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated that fall.[74] The Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series led to the formation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball.[75] The first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the founding of the Negro National League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the Eastern Colored League.[76]

Rise of Ruth and racial integration

Compared with the present, professional baseball in the early 20th century was lower-scoring, and pitchers were more dominant.[77] This so-called "dead-ball era" ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new regulations governed the ball's size, shape and composition, along with a new rule officially banning the spitball and other pitches that depended on the ball being treated or roughed-up with foreign substances, resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit.[78] The rise of the legendary player Babe Ruth, the first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter the nature of the game.[79] In the late 1920s and early 1930s, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey invested in several minor league clubs and developed the first modern farm system.[80] A new Negro National League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined by the Negro American League. The first elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939, Little League Baseball was founded in Pennsylvania.[81]

Many minor league teams disbanded when World War II led to a player shortage. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to help keep the game in the public eye.[82] The first crack in the unwritten agreement barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred in 1945: Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers and began playing for their minor league team in Montreal.[83] In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers.[84] Latin-American players, largely overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars.[85][86] Integration proceeded slowly: by 1953, only six of the 16 major league teams had a black player on the roster.[85]

Attendance records and the age of steroids

In 1975, the union's power—and players' salaries—began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was effectively struck down, leading to the free agency system.[87] Significant work stoppages occurred in 1981 and 1994, the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years.[88] Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance.[89][90] After play resumed in 1995, non-division-winning wild card teams became a permanent fixture of the post-season. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set.[91] In 2000, the National and American Leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other functions—such as player discipline and umpire supervision—they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of MLB.[92]

In 2001, Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004.[93] In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing Hank Aaron, as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs.[94][95]

Around the world

Main article: History of baseball outside the United States

Despite having been called "America's national pastime", baseball is well-established in several other countries. As early as 1877, a professional league, the International Association, featured teams from both Canada and the United States.[96] While baseball is widely played in Canada and many minor league teams have been based in the country,[97][98] the American major leagues did not include a Canadian club until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League as an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League.[99]

In 1847, American soldiers played what may have been the first baseball game in Mexico at Parque Los Berros in Xalapa, Veracruz.[100] The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition. The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament in 1912.[101] Professional baseball tournaments and leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Mexico (1937), and Puerto Rico (1938).[102] The Japanese major leagues have long been considered the highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States.[103]

After World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American countries, most prominently Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955).[105] Since the early 1970s, the annual Caribbean Series has matched the championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter leagues: the Dominican Professional Baseball League, Mexican Pacific League, Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, and Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990) and China (2003) all have professional leagues.[106]

The English football club, Aston Villa, were the first British baseball champions winning the 1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain.[107][108] The 2020 National Champions were the London Mets. Other European countries have seen professional leagues; the most successful, other than the Dutch league, is the Italian league, founded in 1948.[109] In 2004, Australia won a surprise silver medal at the Olympic Games.[110] The Confédération Européene de Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries. Other competitions between national teams, such as the Baseball World Cup and the Olympic baseball tournament, were administered by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) from its formation in 1938 until its 2013 merger with the International Softball Federation to create the current joint governing body for both sports, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).[111] Women's baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in numerous countries.[112]

After being admitted to the Olympics as a medal sport beginning with the 1992 Games, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games at the 2005 International Olympic Committee meeting. It remained part of the 2008 Games.[113] While the sport's lack of a following in much of the world was a factor,[114] more important was MLB's reluctance to allow its players to participate during the major league season.[115] MLB initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede its season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The inaugural Classic, held in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to feature a significant number of MLB participants.[116][117] The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after its 2011 edition in favor of an expanded World Baseball Classic.[118]

Distinctive elements

Baseball has certain attributes that set it apart from the other popular team sports in the countries where it has a following. All of these sports use a clock,[119] play is less individual,[120] and the variation between playing fields is not as substantial or important.[121] The comparison between cricket and baseball demonstrates that many of baseball's distinctive elements are shared in various ways with similar sports.[122][123]

No clock to kill

In clock-limited sports, games often end with a team that holds the lead killing the clock rather than competing aggressively against the opposing team. In contrast, baseball has no clock, thus a team cannot win without getting the last batter out and rallies are not constrained by time. At almost any turn in any baseball game, the most advantageous strategy is some form of aggressive strategy.[124] Whereas, in the case of multi-day Test and first-class cricket, the possibility of a draw (which occurs because of the restrictions on time, which like in baseball, originally did not exist[125]) often encourages a team that is batting last and well behind, to bat defensively and run out the clock, giving up any faint chance at a win, to avoid an overall loss.[126]

While nine innings has been the standard since the beginning of professional baseball, the duration of the average major league game has increased steadily through the years. At the turn of the 20th century, games typically took an hour and a half to play. In the 1920s, they averaged just less than two hours, which eventually ballooned to 2:38 in 1960.[127] By 1997, the average American League game lasted 2:57 (National League games were about 10 minutes shorter—pitchers at the plate making for quicker outs than designated hitters).[128] In 2004, Major League Baseball declared that its goal was an average game of 2:45.[127] By 2014, though, the average MLB game took over three hours to complete.[129] The lengthening of games is attributed to longer breaks between half-innings for television commercials, increased offense, more pitching changes, and a slower pace of play, with pitchers taking more time between each delivery, and batters stepping out of the box more frequently.[127][128] Other leagues have experienced similar issues. In 2008, Nippon Professional Baseball took steps aimed at shortening games by 12 minutes from the preceding decade's average of 3:18.[130]

In 2016, the average nine-inning playoff game in Major League baseball was 3 hours and 35 minutes. This was up 10 minutes from 2015 and 21 minutes from 2014.[131] In response to the lengthening of the game, MLB decided from the 2023 season onward to institute a pitch clock rule to penalize batters and pitchers who take too much time between pitches; this had the effect of shortening 2023 regular season games by 24 minutes on average.[132][133]

Individual focus

Although baseball is a team sport, individual players are often placed under scrutiny and pressure. While rewarding, it has sometimes been described as "ruthless" due to the pressure on the individual player.[134] In 1915, a baseball instructional manual pointed out that every single pitch, of which there are often more than two hundred in a game, involves an individual, one-on-one contest: "the pitcher and the batter in a battle of wits".[135] Pitcher, batter, and fielder all act essentially independent of each other. While coaching staffs can signal pitcher or batter to pursue certain tactics, the execution of the play itself is a series of solitary acts. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder is solely responsible for deciding to try to catch it or play it on the bounce and for succeeding or failing. The statistical precision of baseball is both facilitated by this isolation and reinforces it.

Cricket is more similar to baseball than many other team sports in this regard: while the individual focus in cricket is mitigated by the importance of the batting partnership and the practicalities of tandem running, it is enhanced by the fact that a batsman may occupy the wicket for an hour or much more.[136] There is no statistical equivalent in cricket for the fielding error and thus less emphasis on personal responsibility in this area of play.[137]

Uniqueness of parks

Further information: Ballpark

Unlike those of most sports, baseball playing fields can vary significantly in size and shape. While the dimensions of the infield are specifically regulated, the only constraint on outfield size and shape for professional teams, following the rules of MLB and Minor League Baseball, is that fields built or remodeled since June 1, 1958, must have a minimum distance of 325 feet (99 m) from home plate to the fences in left and right field and 400 feet (122 m) to center.[138] Major league teams often skirt even this rule. For example, at Daikin Park, which became the home of the Houston Astros in 2000, the Crawford Boxes in left field are only 315 feet (96 m) from home plate.[139] There are no rules at all that address the height of fences or other structures at the edge of the outfield. The most famously idiosyncratic outfield boundary is the left-field wall at Boston's Fenway Park, in use since 1912: the Green Monster is 310 feet (94 m) from home plate down the line and 37 feet (11 m) tall.[140]

Similarly, there are no regulations at all concerning the dimensions of foul territory. Thus a foul fly ball may be entirely out of play in a park with little space between the foul lines and the stands, but a foulout in a park with more expansive foul ground.[141] A fence in foul territory that is close to the outfield line will tend to direct balls that strike it back toward the fielders, while one that is farther away may actually prompt more collisions, as outfielders run full speed to field balls deep in the corner. These variations can make the difference between a double and a triple or inside-the-park home run.[142] The surface of the field is also unregulated. While the adjacent image shows a traditional field surfacing arrangement (and the one used by virtually all MLB teams with naturally surfaced fields), teams are free to decide what areas will be grassed or bare.[143] Some fields—including several in MLB—use artificial turf. Surface variations can have a significant effect on how ground balls behave and are fielded as well as on baserunning. Similarly, the presence of a roof (seven major league teams play in stadiums with permanent or retractable roofs) can greatly affect how fly balls are played.[144] While football and soccer players deal with similar variations of field surface and stadium covering, the size and shape of their fields are much more standardized. The area out-of-bounds on a football or soccer field does not affect play the way foul territory in baseball does, so variations in that regard are largely insignificant.[145]

These physical variations create a distinctive set of playing conditions at each ballpark. Other local factors, such as altitude and climate, can also significantly affect play. A given stadium may acquire a reputation as a pitcher's park or a hitter's park, if one or the other discipline notably benefits from its unique mix of elements. The most exceptional park in this regard is Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. Its high altitude—5,282 feet (1,610 m) above sea level—is partly responsible for giving it the strongest hitter's park effect in the major leagues due to the low air pressure.[146] Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, is known for its fickle disposition: a pitcher's park when the strong winds off Lake Michigan are blowing in, it becomes more of a hitter's park when they are blowing out.[147] The absence of a standardized field affects not only how particular games play out, but the nature of team rosters and players' statistical records. For example, hitting a fly ball 330 feet (100 m) into right field might result in an easy catch on the warning track at one park, and a home run at another. A team that plays in a park with a relatively short right field, such as the New York Yankees, will tend to stock its roster with left-handed pull hitters, who can best exploit it. On the individual level, a player who spends most of his career with a team that plays in a hitter's park will gain an advantage in batting statistics over time—even more so if his talents are especially suited to the park.[148]

Statistics

Further information: Baseball statistics

Organized baseball lends itself to statistics to a greater degree than many other sports. Each play is discrete and has a relatively small number of possible outcomes. In the late 19th century, a former cricket player, English-born Henry Chadwick of Brooklyn, was responsible for the "development of the box score, tabular standings, the annual baseball guide, the batting average, and most of the common statistics and tables used to describe baseball."[149] The statistical record is so central to the game's "historical essence" that Chadwick came to be known as Father Baseball.[149] In the 1920s, American newspapers began devoting more and more attention to baseball statistics, initiating what journalist and historian Alan Schwarz describes as a "tectonic shift in sports, as intrigue that once focused mostly on teams began to go to individual players and their statistics lines."[150]

The Official Baseball Rules administered by MLB require the official scorer to categorize each baseball play unambiguously. The rules provide detailed criteria to promote consistency. The score report is the official basis for both the box score of the game and the relevant statistical records.[151] General managers, managers, and baseball scouts use statistics to evaluate players and make strategic decisions.

Certain traditional statistics are familiar to most baseball fans. The basic batting statistics include:[152]

• At bats: plate appearances, excluding walks and hit by pitches—where the batter's ability is not fully tested—and sacrifices and sacrifice flies—where the batter intentionally makes an out in order to advance one or more baserunners

• Hits: times a base is reached safely, because of a batted, fair ball without a fielding error or fielder's choice

• Runs: times circling the bases and reaching home safely

• Runs batted in (RBIs): number of runners who scored due to a batter's action (including the batter, in the case of a home run), except when batter grounded into double play or reached on an error

• Home runs: hits on which the batter successfully touched all four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error

• Batting average: hits divided by at bats—the traditional measure of batting ability

The basic baserunning statistics include:[153]

• Stolen bases: times advancing to the next base entirely due to the runner's own efforts, generally while the pitcher is preparing to deliver or delivering the ball

• Caught stealing: times tagged out while attempting to steal a base

The basic pitching statistics include:[154]

• Wins: credited to pitcher on winning team who last pitched before the team took a lead that it never relinquished (a starting pitcher must pitch at least five innings to qualify for a win)

• Losses: charged to pitcher on losing team who was pitching when the opposing team took a lead that it never relinquished

• Saves: games where the pitcher enters a game led by the pitcher's team, finishes the game without surrendering the lead, is not the winning pitcher, and either (a) the lead was three runs or less when the pitcher entered the game; (b) the potential tying run was on base, at bat, or on deck; or (c) the pitcher pitched three or more innings

• Innings pitched: outs recorded while pitching divided by three (partial innings are conventionally recorded as, e.g., "5.2" or "7.1", the last digit actually representing thirds, not tenths, of an inning)

• Strikeouts: times pitching three strikes to a batter

• Winning percentage: wins divided by decisions (wins plus losses)

• Earned run average (ERA): runs allowed, excluding those resulting from fielding errors, per nine innings pitched

The basic fielding statistics include:[155]

• Putouts: times the fielder catches a fly ball, tags or forces out a runner, or otherwise directly effects an out

• Assists: times a putout by another fielder was recorded following the fielder touching the ball

• Errors: times the fielder fails to make a play that should have been made with common effort, and the batting team benefits as a result

• Total chances: putouts plus assists plus errors

• Fielding average: successful chances (putouts plus assists) divided by total chances

Among the many other statistics that are kept are those collectively known as situational statistics. For example, statistics can indicate which specific pitchers a certain batter performs best against. If a given situation statistically favors a certain batter, the manager of the fielding team may be more likely to change pitchers or have the pitcher intentionally walk the batter in order to face one who is less likely to succeed.[156]

Sabermetrics

Sabermetrics is the field of baseball statistical study and the development of new statistics and analytical tools. Such new statistics are also called sabermetrics. The term was coined around 1980 by one of the field's leading proponents, Bill James, and derives from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).[157]

The growing popularity of sabermetrics since the early 1980s has brought more attention to two batting statistics that sabermetricians argue are much better gauges of a batter's skill than batting average:[158]

• On-base percentage (OBP) measures a batter's ability to get on base. It is calculated by taking the sum of the batter's successes in getting on base (hits plus walks plus hit by pitches) and dividing that by the batter's total plate appearances (at bats plus walks plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice flies), except for sacrifice bunts.[159]

• Slugging percentage (SLG) measures a batter's ability to hit for power. It is calculated by taking the batter's total bases (one per each single, two per double, three per triple, and four per home run) and dividing that by the batter's at bats.[160]

Some of the new statistics devised by sabermetricians have gained wide use:

• On-base plus slugging (OPS) measures a batter's overall ability. It is calculated by adding the batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage.[161]

• Walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) measures a pitcher's ability at preventing hitters from reaching base. It is calculated by adding the number of walks and hits a pitcher surrendered, then dividing by the number of innings pitched.[162]

• Wins Above Replacement (WAR) measures number of additional wins his team has achieved above the number of expected team wins if that player were substituted with a replacement-level player.[163]

Popularity and cultural impact

Writing in 1919, philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen described baseball as the national religion of the US.[164] In the words of sports columnist Jayson Stark, baseball has long been "a unique paragon of American culture"—a status he sees as devastated by the steroid abuse scandal.[165] Baseball has an important place in other national cultures as well: Scholar Peter Bjarkman describes "how deeply the sport is ingrained in the history and culture of a nation such as Cuba, [and] how thoroughly it was radically reshaped and nativized in Japan."[166]

Western Hemisphere

American influence in the Western Hemisphere has meant that baseball grew significantly in the region.

In the United States

See also: Baseball in Canada

The major league game in the United States was originally targeted toward a middle-class, white-collar audience: relative to other spectator pastimes, the National League's set ticket price of 50 cents in 1876 was high, while the location of playing fields outside the inner city and the workweek daytime scheduling of games were also obstacles to a blue-collar audience.[167] A century later, the situation was very different. With the rise in popularity of other team sports with much higher average ticket prices—football, basketball, and hockey—professional baseball had become among the most popular blue-collar-oriented American spectator sports.[168]

Overall, baseball has a large following in the United States; a 2006 poll found that nearly half of Americans are fans.[169] This led to baseball being granted the title of "America's favorite pastime" by many American baseball fans.[170] The game was historically seen as contributing to the melting pot society of the nation, encouraging immigrants to integrate.[171] In the late 1900s and early 2000s, baseball's position compared to football in the United States moved in contradictory directions. In 2008, MLB set a revenue record of $6.5 billion, matching the NFL's revenue for the first time in decades.[172] A new MLB revenue record of more than $10 billion was set in 2017.[173] On the other hand, the percentage of American sports fans polled who named baseball as their favorite sport was 9%, compared to pro football at 37%.[174] In 1985, the respective figures were pro football 24%, baseball 23%.[175] Because there are so many more major league games played, there is no comparison in overall attendance.[176] In 2008, total attendance at major league games was the second-highest in history: 78.6 million, 0.7% off the record set the previous year.[94] The following year, amid the U.S. recession, attendance fell by 6.6% to 73.4 million.[177] Eight years later, it dropped under 73 million.[178] Attendance at games held under the Minor League Baseball umbrella set a record in 2008, with 43.3 million.[179] While MLB games have not drawn the same national TV viewership as football games, MLB games are dominant in teams' local markets and regularly lead all programs in primetime in their markets during the summer.[180] After multiple years of declines since 2017, baseball attendance has grown slightly in recent years. In 2024, attendance was 71.3 million, the highest since 2017.[181]

Latin America

See also: Latin America–United States relations § Sports

Baseball is very popular in Venezuela; in 2011, 95% of people surveyed claimed it to be the national sport.[182] In Nicaragua and Panama, baseball is also considered the national sport.[183][184] While soccer is still more popular, baseball is a fast-growing sport in Mexico. In 2024, top Mexican League baseball teams outdraw some Liga MX teams in attendance.[185] Baseball also is somewhat popular in Colombia, though secondary to soccer, especially in coastal areas such as Barranquilla and Cartagena which are near the Caribbean.[186] In recent years, baseball has grown in popularity in Colombia, especially in the capital of Bogotá, due an increase of Venezuelan immigrants.[187] In Brazil, baseball fan popularity has grown in the last few years, thanks to MLB broadcasts in Brazilian ESPN and the historic silver medal in 2023 Pan-American games. However, it still lags behind Basketball and American Football in the list of most played sports in Brazil.[188][189] Baseball has also grown in popularity in Argentina and Peru in recent years due to Venezuelan immigrants.[190] Costa Rica has also seen a growth in the popularity of baseball. Since 1987, baseballs have exclusively been made in the Costa Rican town of Turrialba.[191]

The sport's overall popularity in Latin America has assisted in integrating Latin American migrants to the United States.[192]

Caribbean

Since the early 1980s, the Dominican Republic, in particular the city of San Pedro de Macorís, has been the major leagues' primary source of foreign talent.[193] In 2017, 83 of the 868 players on MLB Opening Day rosters (and disabled lists) were from the country. Among other Caribbean countries and territories, a combined 97 MLB players were born in Venezuela, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.[194] Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente remains one of the greatest national heroes in Puerto Rico's history.[195] While baseball has long been the island's primary athletic pastime, its once well-attended professional winter league has declined in popularity since 1990, when young Puerto Rican players began to be included in the major leagues' annual first-year player draft.[196] In Cuba, where baseball is by every reckoning the national sport,[197] the national team overshadows the city and provincial teams that play in the top-level domestic leagues.[198] Baseball is also one of the most popular sports of Aruba and Curaçao,[199] and a growing sport in The Bahamas.[200]

Asia

In East Asia, baseball is among the most popular sports in Japan,[201] Taiwan[202] and South Korea.[203] In Japan, where baseball is inarguably the leading spectator team sport, combined revenue for the twelve teams in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the body that oversees both the Central and Pacific Leagues, was estimated at $1 billion in 2007. Total NPB attendance for the year was approximately 20 million. While in the preceding two decades, MLB attendance grew by 50 percent and revenue nearly tripled, the comparable NPB figures were stagnant. There are concerns that MLB's growing interest in acquiring star Japanese players will hurt the game in their home country.[204] Revenue figures are not released for the country's amateur system. Similarly, according to one official pronouncement, the sport's governing authority "has never taken into account attendance ... because its greatest interest has always been the development of athletes".[205] In Taiwan, baseball is one of the most widely spectated sports, in TV and person.[206]

Baseball has grown significantly in China in recent years, with MLB estimating in 2019 that there are 21 million active fans in the country.[207]

Europe

Baseball is generally a niche sport in Europe.[208] However, baseball is somewhat popular in the Netherlands, where it is known as honkbal, thanks to influence from the United States after World War II and the Kingdoms control over Aruba and Curaçao where it is the most popular sport.[209] Baseball is also somewhat popular in portions of Italy, especially in the town of Nettuno, due to influence from American soldiers after World War II.[210] Baseball has grown in recent years in the Czech Republic, due in part to the Czech teams' success in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.[211]

Oceania

See also: Baseball in New Zealand

Baseball is one of the most popular sports in Palau.[212] In Australia, Baseball is a niche sport but the country does have a professional league. Because the league is played in winter for the western hemisphere, it attracts American and Korean professional players looking to play winter league baseball.[213]

Among children

As of 2024, Little League Baseball oversees leagues with 2 million participants in more than 80 countries.[214] The number of players has fallen since the 1990s, when 3 million children took part in Little League Baseball annually.[215] Babe Ruth League teams have over 1 million participants.[216] According to the president of the International Baseball Federation in 2009, between 300,000 and 500,000 women and girls play baseball around the world, including Little League and the introductory game of Tee Ball.[217]

A varsity baseball team is an established part of physical education departments at most high schools and colleges in the United States.[218] In 2015, nearly half a million high schoolers and over 34,000 collegians played on their schools' baseball teams.[219] By early in the 20th century, intercollegiate baseball was Japan's leading sport. Today, high school baseball in particular is immensely popular there.[220] The final rounds of the two annual tournaments—the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring, and the even more important National High School Baseball Championship in the summer—are broadcast around the country. The tournaments are known, respectively, as Spring Koshien and Summer Koshien after the 55,000-capacity stadium where they are played.[221] In Cuba, baseball is a mandatory part of the state system of physical education, which begins at age six. Talented children as young as seven are sent to special district schools for more intensive training—the first step on a ladder whose acme is the national baseball team.[198]

In popular culture

Baseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the United States and elsewhere. Dozens of English-language idioms have been derived from baseball; in particular, the game is the source of a number of widely used sexual euphemisms.[223] The first networked radio broadcasts in North America were of the 1922 World Series: famed sportswriter Grantland Rice announced play-by-play from New York City's Polo Grounds on WJZ–Newark, New Jersey, which was connected by wire to WGY–Schenectady, New York, and WBZ–Springfield, Massachusetts.[224] The baseball cap has become a ubiquitous fashion item not only in the United States and Japan, but also in countries where the sport itself is not particularly popular, such as the United Kingdom.[225]

Baseball has inspired many works of art and entertainment. One of the first major examples, Ernest Thayer's poem "Casey at the Bat", appeared in 1888. A wry description of the failure of a star player in what would now be called a "clutch situation", the poem became the source of vaudeville and other staged performances, audio recordings, film adaptations, and an opera, as well as a host of sequels and parodies in various media. There have been many baseball movies, including the Academy Award–winning The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and the Oscar nominees The Natural (1984) and Field of Dreams (1989). The American Film Institute's selection of the ten best sports movies includes The Pride of the Yankees at number 3 and Bull Durham (1988) at number 5.[226] Baseball has provided thematic material for hits on both stage—the Adler–Ross musical Damn Yankees—and record—George J. Gaskin's "Slide, Kelly, Slide", Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson", and John Fogerty's "Centerfield".[227] The baseball-inspired comedic sketch "Who's on First?", popularized by Abbott and Costello in 1938, quickly became famous. Six decades later, Time named it the best comedy routine of the 20th century.[228]

Literary works connected to the game include the short fiction of Ring Lardner and novels such as Bernard Malamud's The Natural (the source for the movie), Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., John Grisham's Calico Joe and W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (the source for Field of Dreams). Baseball's literary canon also includes the beat reportage of Damon Runyon; the columns of Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Dick Young, and Peter Gammons; and the essays of Roger Angell. Among the celebrated nonfiction books in the field are Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, and Michael Lewis's Moneyball. The 1970 publication of major league pitcher Jim Bouton's tell-all chronicle Ball Four is considered a turning point in the reporting of professional sports.[229]

Baseball has also inspired the creation of new cultural forms. Baseball cards were introduced in the late 19th century as trade cards. A typical example featured an image of a baseball player on one side and advertising for a business on the other. In the early 1900s they were produced widely as promotional items by tobacco and confectionery companies. The 1930s saw the popularization of the modern style of baseball card, with a player photograph accompanied on the rear by statistics and biographical data. Baseball cards—many of which are now prized collectibles—are the source of the much broader trading card industry, involving similar products for different sports and non-sports-related fields.[230]

Modern fantasy sports began in 1980 with the invention of Rotisserie League Baseball by New York writer Daniel Okrent and several friends. Participants in a Rotisserie league draft notional teams from the list of active MLB players and play out an entire imaginary season with game outcomes based on the players' latest real-world statistics. Rotisserie-style play quickly became a phenomenon. Now known more generically as fantasy baseball, it has inspired similar games based on an array of different sports.[231] The field boomed with increasing Internet access and new fantasy sports-related websites. By 2008, 29.9 million people in the United States and Canada were playing fantasy sports, spending $800 million on the hobby.[232] The burgeoning popularity of fantasy baseball is also credited with the increasing attention paid to sabermetrics—first among fans, only later among baseball professionals.[233]

Derivative games

Main article: Variations of baseball

Informal variations of baseball have popped up over time, with games like corkball reflecting local traditions and allowing the game to be played in diverse environments.[234] Two variations of baseball, softball and Baseball5, are internationally governed alongside baseball by the World Baseball Softball Confederation.[235]

British baseball

Main article: British baseball

American professional baseball teams toured Britain in 1874 and 1889, and had a great effect on similar sports in Britain. In Wales and Merseyside, a strong community game had already developed with skills and plays more in keeping with the American game and the Welsh began to informally adopt the name "baseball" (Pêl Fas), to reflect the American style. By the 1890s, calls were made to follow the success of other working class sports (like Rugby in Wales and Soccer in Merseyside) and adopt a distinct set of rules and bureaucracy.[236] During the 1892 season rules for the game of "baseball" were agreed and the game was officially codified.[237]

Finnish baseball

Main article: Pesäpallo

Finnish baseball, also known as pesäpallo, is a combination of traditional ball-batting team games and North American baseball, invented by Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala in the 1920s.[238][239] The basic idea of pesäpallo is similar to that of baseball: the offense tries to score by hitting the ball successfully and running through the bases, while the defense tries to put the batter and runners out. One of the most important differences between pesäpallo and baseball is that the ball is pitched vertically, which makes hitting the ball, as well as controlling the power and direction of the hit, much easier. This gives the offensive game more variety, speed, and tactical aspects compared to baseball.[238]

See also

• Baseball portal

• Baseball awards

• Baseball clothing and equipment

• List of baseball films

• List of organized baseball leagues

• Women in baseball

Related sports

• Brännboll (Scandinavian bat-and-ball game)

• Comparison of baseball and softball

• Comparison of baseball and cricket

• Lapta (game) (Russian bat-and-ball game)

• Oină (Romanian bat-and-ball game)

• Snow baseball (with similar rules played in India during winters)

• Stickball

• Stoop ball

• Vitilla

• Wiffle ball

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194.  "Opening Day Rosters Feature 230 Players Born Outside the U.S." Major League Baseball. April 6, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2018.

195.  Bjarkman (2004), p. 487.

196.  Castillo, Jorge (January 16, 2012). "Puerto Rico Traces Baseball's Slide to the Draft". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved January 25, 2012.

197.  González Echevarría (2001), pp. 76, 133, 278–279, 352.

198.  Weissert, Will (March 5, 2009). "Cubans' Baseball Dreams Take Root on Rocky Fields". USA Today. Associated Press. Retrieved April 28, 2009.

199.  Belson, Ken (March 7, 2017). "With Talent From Two Small Islands, the Netherlands Is a W.B.C. Favorite". The New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2025.

200.  Yates, Clinton (January 24, 2022). "Baseball and the Bahamas: A deeper bond than you may realize". Andscape. Retrieved May 10, 2025.

201.  Hernandez, Dylan (March 21, 2017). "World Baseball Classic keeps sport relevant in Japan". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 26, 2018.

202.  "A Cultural Exploration of Baseball in Taiwan". CommonWealth Magazine (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Archived from the original on July 4, 2024. Retrieved January 10, 2025.

203.  "South Korea baseball history". MLB.com. Retrieved January 10, 2025.

204.  Whiting, Robert (April 11, 2007). "Is the MLB Destroying Japan's National Pastime?". The Japan Times. Retrieved February 8, 2009.

205.  González Echevarría (2001), p. 366.

206.  Yeh, Joseph (September 30, 2008). "Taiwan Baseball a new rallying point for national pride". Archived from the original on July 12, 2015. Retrieved May 1, 2022.

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208.  Stangler, Cole (July 6, 2019). "Does Baseball Have a Future in Europe?". Commonweal. Retrieved May 11, 2025.

209.  Tagliabue, John (May 21, 2008). "In Netherlands, Soccer Is King, but Baseball Eyes Crown". The New York Times. Retrieved May 11, 2025.

210.  Monagan, Matt (March 1, 2023). "The seaside Italian town obsessed with baseball". Major League Baseball. Retrieved May 11, 2025.

211.  Wisniewski, Emilia; Durben, Alexa (October 1, 2024). "Czech national baseball team expands its family of supporters". Knoxville News Sentinel. Retrieved May 11, 2025.

212.  Sepe-Chepuru, Shanthi (June 21, 2022). "Madris makes history as MLB's first player from Palau". MLB.com. Retrieved June 21, 2022.

213.  Garro, Adrian (March 27, 2024). "'Something in the water': What makes Australian baseball so special?". Major League Baseball. Retrieved May 11, 2025.

214.  "Little League Baseball World Series Media Guide". Little League Baseball. 2024. p. 14.

215.  Fisher, Mark (April 5, 2015). "Baseball is struggling to hook kids – and risks losing fans to other sports". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 30, 2018.

216.  "History of the Babe Ruth League Program". Babe Ruth League Online. Retrieved April 10, 2018.

217.  Frommer, Frederic J (April 6, 2009). "Baseball to Add Women to Olympic Bid". USA Today. Associated Press. Retrieved April 29, 2009.

218.  Bradford, Marcia (2008). "Expanding Opportunities on the Ball Fields". SportsEvents Magazine. Archived from the original on February 9, 2009. Retrieved May 3, 2009.

219.  "Estimated probability of competing in college athletics". National Collegiate Athletic Association. March 2, 2015. Retrieved April 22, 2018.

220.  Bjarkman (2004), p. xxiv; Gmelch (2006), pp. 23, 53.

221.  Ellsesser, Stephen (August 11, 2006). "Summer Tournament Is Big in Japan". Major League Baseball. Archived from the original on October 14, 2009. Retrieved April 28, 2009.

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224.  Rudel (2008), pp. 145–146.

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231.  Zoss (2004), pp. 27–31.

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237.  Beynon, Ivor; Evans, Bob (1962). The Inside Story of Baseball. Cardiff: Unknown. p. 4.

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1.  Partially because baseball was much shorter in duration than the form of cricket played at the time and did not require a special playing surface.

General and cited sources

• Bjarkman, Peter C. (2004). Diamonds Around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-32268-6. OCLC 58806121.

• Block, David (2005). Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6255-3. OCLC 70261798.

• Burgos, Adrian (2007). Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25143-4. OCLC 81150202.

• Burk, Robert F. (2001). Never Just a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball to 1920. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4961-3. OCLC 28183874.

• Charlton, James, ed. (1991). The Baseball Chronology: The Complete History of the Most Important Events in the Game of Baseball. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-523971-5. OCLC 22704314.

• Clarke, William Jones & Fredrick Thomas Dawson (1915). Baseball: Individual Play and Team Play in Detail. Charles Scribner's Sons. OCLC 2781766.

• Gmelch, George (2006). Baseball Without Borders: The International Pastime. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-7125-8. OCLC 64594333.

• González Echevarría, Roberto (2001). The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514605-9. OCLC 46601626.

• Guttmann, Allen (2007). Sports: The First Five Millennia. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-610-1. OCLC 5912442808.

• Guzzo, Glenn (2007). The New Ballgame: Baseball Statistics for the Casual Fan. ACTA. ISBN 978-0-87946-318-2. OCLC 123083947.

• Keri, Jonah, ed. (2007). Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong. Basic. ISBN 978-0-465-00547-5. OCLC 77795904.

• Koppett, Leonard (2004). Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-7867-1286-1. OCLC 54674804.

• Kte'pi, Bill (2009). "Baseball (Amateur)". In Rodney Carlisle (ed.). Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society, Volume 1. SAGE. ISBN 978-1-4129-6670-2. OCLC 251215353.

• Lewis, Michael M. (2003). Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32481-5. OCLC 54896532.

• Mahony, Phillip (2014). Baseball Explained. McFarland Books. ISBN 978-0-7864-7964-1. Archived from the original on August 13, 2014.

• Mandelbaum, Michael (2005). The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball and What They See When They Do. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-330-2. OCLC 55539339.

• McNeil, William (2000). Baseball's Other All-Stars: The Greatest Players from the Negro Leagues, the Japanese Leagues, the Mexican League, and the Pre-1960 Winter Leagues in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0784-2. OCLC 42976826.

• Morris, Peter (2007). Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-1110-0. OCLC 70884952.

• Porterfield, Jason (2007). Baseball: Rules, Tips, Strategy, and Safety. Rosen. ISBN 978-1-4042-0991-6. OCLC 67773742.

• Powers, Albert Theodore (2003). The Business of Baseball. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1426-0. OCLC 50866929.

• Puhalla, Jim; Jeff Krans; Mike Goatley (2003). Baseball and Softball Fields: Design, Construction, Renovation, and Maintenance. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-44793-1. OCLC 50959054.

• Rader, Benjamin G. (2008). Baseball: A History of America's Game (3rd ed.). University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07550-6. OCLC 176980876.

• Riess, Steven A. (1991). City Games: The Evolution of American Urban Society and the Rise of Sports. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06216-2. OCLC 23739530.

• Rudel, Anthony J. (2008). Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-15-101275-6. OCLC 192042215.

• Schwarz, Alan (2004). The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics. Thomas Dunne. ISBN 978-0-312-32222-9. OCLC 54692908.

• Stallings, Jack; Bob Bennett, eds. (2003). Baseball Strategies: Your Guide to the Game Within the Game. American Baseball Coaches Association/Human Kinetics. ISBN 978-0-7360-4218-5. OCLC 50203866.

• Sullivan, Dean, ed. (1997). Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825–1908. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9244-4. OCLC 36258074.

• Terry, Thomas Philip (1911). Terry's Mexico: Handbook for Travellers (2nd rev. ed.). Gay and Hancock, Houghton Mifflin, and Sonora News. OCLC 7587420.

• Thurston, Bill (2000). Coaching Youth Baseball: A Baffled Parents Guide. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-135822-4. OCLC 43031493.

• Tygiel, Jules (2000). Past Time: Baseball as History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-508958-5. OCLC 42290019.

• Votano, Paul (2013). Stand and Deliver: A History of Pinch-Hitting. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1588-5. OCLC 52047315.

• Zimbalist, Andrew (2007). In the Best Interests of Baseball?: The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-12824-4. OCLC 62796332.

• Zoss, Joel (2004). Diamonds in the Rough: The Untold History of Baseball. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9920-7. OCLC 54611393.

Further reading

• Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd ed. (W. W. Norton, 2009). ISBN 0-393-06681-9.

• Fitts, Robert K. Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005). ISBN 0-8093-2629-9.

• Gillette, Gary, and Pete Palmer (eds.). The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, 5th ed. (Sterling, 2008). ISBN 1-4027-6051-5.

• Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams (Oxford University Press, 1992 [1970]). ISBN 0-19-507637-0.

• Reaves, Joseph A. Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia (Bison, 2004). ISBN 0-8032-3943-2.

• Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. Baseball: An Illustrated History (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). ISBN 0-679-40459-7.

American Football

American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football,[nb 1] is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or throwing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance the ball at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. Points are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of soccer and rugby.[3] The first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, using rules based on the rules of soccer at the time. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs. Later rule changes legalized the forward pass, created the neutral zone, and specified the size and shape of the football. The sport is closely related to Canadian football, which evolved in parallel with and at the same time as the American game, although its rules were developed independently from those of Camp. Most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are also present in Canadian football. The two sports are considered the primary variants of gridiron football.

American football is the most popular sport in the United States in terms of broadcast viewership audience. The most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2022, nearly 1.04 million high-school athletes play the sport in the U.S., with another 81,000 college athletes in the NCAA and the NAIA.[4] The National Football League (NFL) has one of the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, ranks among the most-watched club sporting events globally. In 2022, the league had an annual revenue of around $18.6 billion,[5] making it the most valuable sports league in the world.[6] Other professional and amateur leagues exist worldwide, but the sport does not have the international popularity of other American sports like baseball or basketball; the sport maintains a growing following in the rest of North America, Europe, Brazil, and Japan.

Unlike most other ball sports, like basketball, baseball, and soccer, players of American football are not expected to play both offense and defense- usually, each player is assigned to either offense or defense, not both. As such, each individual player usually only plays for, at most, about half of the game. In modern professional American football, it is very rare, although not unheard of, for players to play both offense and defense. Players who play on both sides of the ball are more common in high school and college football.

Etymology and names

Main article: Football (word)

In the United States, American football is referred to as "football".[7] The term "football" was officially established in the rulebook for the 1876 college football season, when the sport first shifted from soccer-style rules to rugby-style rules. Although it could easily have been called "rugby" at this point, Harvard, one of the primary proponents of the rugby-style game, compromised and did not request the name of the sport be changed to "rugby".[8] The terms "gridiron" or "American football" are favored in English-speaking countries where other types of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia.[9][10]

History

Main articles: History of American football and American football in the United States

Part of the American football series on the

History of American football

Origins of American football

• Early history

• Modern history

• First game

• First pro league

• First pro player

• Walter Camp

Close relations to other codes

• Australian

• Boston game

• Canadian

• Medieval

• Old division

• Rugby league

• Rugby union

• Soccer

Topics

• Black players in professional football

• Canadian football comparison

• Concussions

• Glossary

• Hall of Fame (College)

• Hall of Fame (Pro)

• Homosexuality

• Rugby league comparison

• Rugby union comparison

• Years 

  • College seasons

  • NFL seasons

• American football Portal

• v

• t

• e

Early history

Main article: Early history of American football

American football evolved from the sports of rugby and soccer. Rugby, like American football, is a sport in which two competing teams vie for control of a ball, which can be kicked through a set of goalposts or run into the opponent's goal area to score points.[11]

What is considered to be the first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams. They consisted of 25 players per team and used a round ball that could not be picked up or carried. It could, however, be kicked or batted with the feet, hands, head, or sides, with the objective being to advance it into the opponent's goal. Rutgers won the game 6–4.[12][13] Collegiate play continued for several years with games played using the rules of the host school. Representatives of Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Rutgers met on October 19, 1873, to create a standard set of rules for use by all schools. Teams were set at 20 players each, and fields of 400 by 250 feet (122 m × 76 m) were specified. Harvard abstained from the conference, as they favored a rugby-style game that allowed running with the ball.[13] After playing McGill University using both American (known as "the Boston game") for the first game and Canadian (rugby) rules for the second one,[13][14] the Harvard players preferred the Canadian style of having only 11 men on the field, running the ball without having to be chased by an opponent, the forward pass, tackling, and using an oblong instead of a round ball.[15][16]

An 1875 Harvard–Yale game played under rugby-style rules was observed by two Princeton athletes who were impressed by it. They introduced the sport to Princeton, a feat the Professional Football Researchers Association compared to "selling refrigerators to Eskimos".[13] Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia then agreed to intercollegiate play using a form of rugby union rules with a modified scoring system.[17] These schools formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, although Yale did not join until 1879. Yale player Walter Camp, now regarded as the "Father of American Football",[17][18] secured rule changes in 1880 that reduced the size of each team from 15 to 11 players and instituted the snap to replace the chaotic and inconsistent scrum.[17] While the game between Rutgers and Princeton is commonly considered the first American football game, several years prior in 1862, the Oneida Football Club formed as the oldest known football club in the United States. The team consisted of graduates of Boston's elite preparatory schools and played from 1862 to 1865.[19]

Evolution of the game

The introduction of the snap resulted in an unexpected consequence. Before the snap, the strategy had been to punt if a scrum resulted in bad field position. However, a group of Princeton players realized that, as the snap was uncontested, they could now hold the ball indefinitely to prevent their opponent from scoring. In 1881, in a game between Yale and Princeton, both teams used this strategy to maintain their undefeated records. Each team held the ball, gaining no ground, for an entire half, resulting in a 0–0 tie. This "block game" proved extremely unpopular with both teams' spectators and fans.[17]

A rule change was necessary to prevent this strategy from taking hold, and a reversion to the scrum was considered. However, Camp successfully proposed a rule in 1882 that limited each team to three downs, or tackles, to advance the ball 5 yards (4.6 m). Failure to advance the ball the required distance within those three downs would result in control of the ball being forfeited to the other team. This change effectively made American football a separate sport from rugby, and the resulting five-yard lines added to the field to measure distances made it resemble a gridiron in appearance. Other major rule changes included a reduction of the field size to 110 by 53

+

1⁄3 yards (100.6 m × 48.8 m) and the adoption of a scoring system that awarded four points for a touchdown, two for a safety and a goal following a touchdown, and five for a goal from the field. Additionally, tackling below the waist was legalized,[17] and a static line of scrimmage was instituted.[20]

Despite these new rules, football remained a violent sport. Dangerous mass-formations like the flying wedge resulted in serious injuries and deaths.[21] A 1905 peak of 19 fatalities nationwide resulted in a threat by President Theodore Roosevelt to abolish the game unless major changes were made.[22] In response, 62 colleges and universities met in New York City to discuss rule changes on December 28, 1905. These proceedings resulted in the formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).[23]

The legal forward pass was introduced in 1906, although its effect was initially minimal due to the restrictions placed on its use. The idea of a 40-yard-wider field was opposed by Harvard due to the size of the new Harvard Stadium.[24] Other rule changes introduced that year included the reduction of playing time from 70 to 60 minutes and an increase of the distance required for a first down from 5 to 10 yards (4.6 to 9.1 m). To reduce infighting and dirty play between teams, the neutral zone was created along the width of the football before the snap.[25] Scoring was also adjusted: points awarded for field goals were reduced to three in 1909[18] and points for touchdowns were raised to six in 1912.[26] Also in 1912, the field was shortened to 100 yards (91 m) long, two 10-yard-long (9.1 m) end zones were created, and teams were given four downs instead of three to advance the ball 10 yards (9.1 m).[27][28] The roughing the passer penalty was implemented in 1914, and eligible players were first allowed to catch the ball anywhere on the field in 1918.[29]

Professional era

On November 12, 1892, Pudge Heffelfinger was paid $500 (equivalent to $17,498 in 2024) to play a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. This is the first recorded instance of a player being paid to participate in a game of American football, although many athletic clubs in the 1880s offered indirect benefits, such as helping players attain employment, giving out trophies or watches that players could pawn for money, or paying double in expense money. Despite these extra benefits, the game had a strict sense of amateurism at the time, and direct payment to players was frowned upon, if not prohibited outright.[30]

Over time, professional play became increasingly common, and with it came rising salaries and unpredictable player movement, as well as the illegal payment of college players who were still in school. The National Football League (NFL), a group of professional teams that was originally established in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, aimed to solve these problems. This new league's stated goals included an end to bidding wars over players, prevention of the use of college players, and abolition of the practice of paying players to leave another team.[31] By 1922, the NFL had established itself as America's premier professional football league.[32]

The dominant form of football at the time was played at the collegiate level. The upstart NFL received a boost to its legitimacy in 1925, however, when an NFL team, the Pottsville Maroons, defeated a team of Notre Dame all-stars in an exhibition game.[33] A greater emphasis on the passing game helped professional football to distinguish itself further from the college game during the late 1930s.[31] Football, in general, became increasingly popular following the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, still referred to as the "Greatest Game Ever Played". The game, a 23–17 overtime victory by the Colts, was seen by millions of television viewers and had a major influence on the popularity of the sport. This, along with the innovations introduced by the new American Football League (AFL) in the early 1960s, helped football to become the most popular sport in the United States by the mid-1960s.[34]

The rival AFL arose in 1960 and challenged the NFL's dominance. The AFL began in relative obscurity but eventually thrived, with an initial television contract with the ABC television network. The AFL's existence forced the conservative NFL to expand to Dallas and Minnesota in an attempt to destroy the new league. Meanwhile, the AFL introduced many new features to professional football in the United States: official time was kept on a scoreboard clock rather than on a watch in the referee's pocket, as the NFL did; optional two-point conversions by pass or run after touchdowns; names on the jerseys of players; and several others, including expansion of the role of minority players, actively recruited by the league in contrast to the NFL. The AFL also signed several star college players who had also been drafted by NFL teams. Competition for players heated up in 1965, when the AFL New York Jets signed rookie Joe Namath to a then-record $437,000 contract (equivalent to $4.36 million in 2023). A five-year, $40 million NBC television contract followed, which helped to sustain the young league. The bidding war for players ended in 1966 when NFL owners approached the AFL regarding a merger, and the two leagues agreed on one that took full effect in 1970. This agreement provided for a common draft that would take place each year, and it instituted an annual World Championship game to be played between the champions of each league. This championship game began play at the end of the 1966 season. Once the merger was completed, it was no longer a championship game between two leagues and reverted to the NFL championship game, which came to be known as the Super Bowl.[35]

College football maintained a tradition of postseason bowl games. Each bowl game was associated with a particular conference and earning a spot in a bowl game was the reward for winning a conference. This arrangement was profitable, but it tended to prevent the two top-ranked teams from meeting in a true national championship game, as they would normally be committed to the bowl games of their respective conferences. Several systems have been used since 1992 to determine a national champion of college football. The first was the Bowl Coalition, in place from 1992 to 1994. This was replaced in 1995 by the Bowl Alliance, which gave way to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in 1997.[36] The BCS arrangement proved to be controversial, and was replaced in 2014 by the College Football Playoff (CFP).[37][38]

Teams and positions

Main article: American football positions

A football game is played between two teams of 11 players each.[39][40][41] Playing with more on the field is punishable by a penalty.[39][42][43] Teams may substitute any number of their players between downs;[44][45][46] this "platoon" system replaced the original system, which featured limited substitution rules, and has resulted in teams utilizing specialized offensive, defensive and special teams units.[47] The number of players allowed on an active roster varies by league; the NFL has a 53-man roster,[48] while NCAA Division I allows teams to have 63 scholarship players in the FCS and 85 scholarship players in the FBS, respectively.[49]

Individual players in a football game must be designated with a uniform number between 0 and 99, though some teams may "retire" certain numbers, making them unavailable to players. NFL teams are required to number their players by a league-approved numbering system, and any exceptions must be approved by the commissioner.[39] NCAA and NFHS teams are "strongly advised" to number their offensive players according to a league-suggested numbering scheme.[50][51]

Although the sport is played almost exclusively by men, women are eligible to play in high school, college, and professional football. No woman has ever played in the NFL, but women have played in high school and college football games.[52] In 2018, 1,100 of the 225,000 players in Pop Warner Little Scholars youth football were girls, and around 11% of the 5.5 million Americans who report playing tackle football are female according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.[53]

Offensive unit

The role of the offensive unit is to advance the football down the field with the ultimate goal of scoring a touchdown.[54]

The offensive team must line up in a legal formation before they can snap the ball. An offensive formation is considered illegal if there are more than four players in the backfield or fewer than five players numbered 50–79 on the offensive line.[40][55][56] Players can line up temporarily in a position whose eligibility is different from what their number permits as long as they report the change immediately to the referee, who then informs the defensive team of the change.[57] Neither team's players, except the center (C), are allowed to line up in or cross the neutral zone until the ball is snapped. Interior offensive linemen are not allowed to move until the snap of the ball.[58]

The main backfield positions are the quarterback (QB), halfback/tailback (HB/TB), and fullback (FB). The quarterback is the leader of the offense. Either the quarterback or a coach calls the plays. Quarterbacks typically inform the rest of the offense of the play in the huddle before the team lines up. The quarterback lines up behind the center to take the snap and then hands the ball off, throws it, or runs with it.[54]

The primary role of the halfback, also known as the running back or tailback, is to carry the ball on running plays. Halfbacks may also serve as receivers. Fullbacks tend to be larger than halfbacks and function primarily as blockers, but they are sometimes used as runners in short-yardage or goal-line situations.[59] They are seldom used as receivers.[60]

The offensive line (OL) consists of several players whose primary function is to block members of the defensive line from tackling the ball carrier on running plays or sacking the quarterback on passing plays.[59] The leader of the offensive line is the center, who is responsible for snapping the ball to the quarterback, blocking,[59] and for making sure that the other linemen do their jobs during the play.[61] On either side of the center are the guards (G), while tackles (T) line up outside the guards.

The principal receivers are the wide receivers (WR) and the tight ends (TE).[62] Wide receivers line up on or near the line of scrimmage, split outside the line. The main goal of the wide receiver is to catch passes thrown by the quarterback,[59] but they may also function as decoys or as blockers during running plays. Tight ends line up outside the tackles and function both as receivers and as blockers.[59]

Defensive unit

The role of the defense is to prevent the offense from scoring by tackling the ball carrier or by forcing turnovers. Turnovers include interceptions (a defender catching a forward pass intended for the offense) and forced fumbles (taking possession of the ball from the ball-carrier).[54]

The defensive line (DL) consists of defensive ends (DE) and defensive tackles (DT). Defensive ends line up on the ends of the line, while defensive tackles line up inside, between the defensive ends. The primary responsibilities of defensive ends and defensive tackles are to stop running plays on the outside and inside, respectively, to pressure the quarterback on passing plays, and to occupy the line so that the linebackers can break through.[59]

Linebackers line up behind the defensive line but in front of the defensive backfield. They are divided into two types: middle linebackers (MLB) and outside linebackers (OLB). Linebackers tend to serve as the defensive leaders and call the defensive plays, given their vantage point of the offensive backfield. Their roles include defending the run, pressuring the quarterback, and tackling backs, wide receivers, and tight ends in the passing game.[63]

The defensive backfield, often called the secondary, consists of cornerbacks (CB) and safeties (S). Safeties are themselves divided into free safeties (FS) and strong safeties (SS).[59] Cornerbacks line up outside the defensive formation, typically opposite a receiver to be able to cover them. Safeties line up between the cornerbacks but farther back in the secondary. Safeties tend to be viewed as "the last line of defense" and are responsible for stopping deep passing plays as well as breakout running plays.[59]

Special teams unit

The special teams unit is responsible for all kicking plays. The special teams unit of the team in control of the ball tries to execute field goal (FG) attempts, punts, and kickoffs, while the opposing team's unit will aim to block or return them.[54]

Three positions are specific to the field goal and PAT (point-after-touchdown) unit: the placekicker (K or PK), holder (H), and long snapper (LS). The long snapper's job is to snap the football to the holder, who will catch and position it for the placekicker. There is not usually a holder on kickoffs, because the ball is kicked off a tee; however, a holder may be used in certain situations, such as if wind is preventing the ball from remaining upright on the tee. The player on the receiving team who catches the ball is known as the kickoff returner (KR).[64]

The positions specific to punt plays are the punter (P), long snapper, upback, and gunner. The long snapper snaps the football directly to the punter, who then drops and kicks it before it hits the ground. Gunners line up split outside the line and race down the field, aiming to tackle the punt returner (PR)—the player who catches the punt. Upbacks line up a short distance behind the line of scrimmage, providing additional protection to the punter.[65]

Rules

Main article: American football rules

Scoring

In football, the winner is the team that has scored more points at the end of the game. There are multiple ways to score in a football game. The touchdown (TD), worth six points, is the most valuable scoring play in American football. A touchdown is scored when a live ball is advanced into, caught, or recovered in the opposing team's end zone.[54] The scoring team then attempts a try, more commonly known as the point(s)-after-touchdown (PAT) or conversion, which is a single scoring opportunity. This is generally attempted from the two- or three-yard line, depending on the level of play. If the PAT is scored by a place kick or drop kick through the goal posts, it is worth one point, typically called the extra point. If the PAT is scored by what would normally be a touchdown, it is worth two points; this is known as a two-point conversion. In general, the extra point is almost always successful, while the two-point conversion is a much riskier play with a higher probability of failure; accordingly, extra point attempts are far more common than two-point conversion attempts.[66]

A field goal (FG), worth three points, is scored when the ball is place kicked or drop kicked through the uprights and over the crossbars of the defense's goalposts.[67][68][69] In practice, almost all field goal attempts are done via place kick. While drop kicks were common in the early days of the sport, the shape of modern footballs makes it difficult to reliably drop kick the ball. The last successful scoring play by drop kick in the NFL was accomplished in 2006; prior to that, the last successful drop kick had been made in 1941.[70] After a PAT attempt or successful field goal, the scoring team must kick the ball off to the other team.[71]

A safety is scored when the ball carrier is tackled in the carrier's own end zone. Safeties are worth two points, which are awarded to the defense.[54] In addition, the team that conceded the safety must kick the ball to the scoring team via a free kick.[72]

Field and equipment

Football games are played on a rectangular field that measures 120 yards (110 m) long and 53

+

1⁄3 yards (48.8 m) wide. Lines marked along the ends and sides of the field are known as the end lines and sidelines. Goal lines are marked 10 yards (9.1 m) inward from each end line.[73][74][75]

Weighted pylons are placed the sidelines on the inside corner of the intersections with the goal lines and end lines. White markings on the field identify the distance from the end zone. Inbound lines, or hash marks, are short parallel lines that mark off 1-yard (0.91 m) increments. Yard lines, which can run the width of the field, are marked every 5 yards (4.6 m). A one-yard-wide line is placed at each end of the field; this line is marked at the center of the two-yard line in professional play and at the three-yard line in college play. Numerals that display the distance from the closest goal line in yards are placed on both sides of the field every ten yards.[73][74][75]

Goalposts are located at the center of the plane of the two end lines. The crossbar of these posts is 10 feet (3.0 m) above the ground, with vertical uprights at the end of the crossbar 18 feet 6 inches (5.64 m) apart for professional and collegiate play, and 23 feet 4 inches (7.11 m) apart for high school play.[76][77][78] The uprights extend vertically 35 feet (11 m) on professional fields, a minimum of 10 yards (9.1 m) on college fields, and a minimum of 10 feet (3.0 m) on high school fields. Goal posts are padded at the base, and orange ribbons are normally placed at the tip of each upright as indicators of wind strength and direction.[76][77][78]

The football itself is a prolate spheroid leather ball, similar to the balls used in rugby or Australian rules football.[79] To contain the compressed air within it, a pig's bladder was commonly used before the advent of artificial rubber inside the leather outer shell to sustain crushing forces.[80][81] At all levels of play, the football is inflated to 12

+

1⁄2 to 13

+

1⁄2 psi (86 to 93 kPa), or just under one atmosphere, and weighs 14 to 15 ounces (400 to 430 g);[78][82][83] beyond that, the exact dimensions vary slightly. In professional play the ball has a long axis of 11 to 11

+

1⁄4 inches (28 to 29 cm), a long circumference of 28 to 28

+

1⁄2 inches (71 to 72 cm), and a short circumference of 21 to 21

+

1⁄4 inches (53 to 54 cm).[84] In college and high school play the ball has a long axis of 10

+

7⁄8 to 11

+

7⁄16 inches (27.6 to 29.1 cm), a long circumference of 27

+

3⁄4 to 28

+

1⁄2 inches (70 to 72 cm), and a short circumference of 20

+

3⁄4 to 21

+

1⁄4 inches (53 to 54 cm).[78][82]

Duration and time stoppages

Football games last for a total of 60 minutes in professional and college play and are divided into two halves of 30 minutes and four quarters of 15 minutes.[85][86] High school football games are 48 minutes in length with two halves of 24 minutes and four quarters of 12 minutes.[87] The two halves are separated by a halftime period, and the first and third quarters are followed by a short break.[85][86][88] Before the game starts, the referee and each team's captain meet at midfield for a coin toss. The visiting team can call either "heads" or "tails"; the winner of the toss chooses whether to receive or kick off the ball or which goal they wish to defend. They can defer their choice until the second half. Unless the winning team decides to defer, the losing team chooses the option the winning team did not select—to receive, kick, or select a goal to defend to begin the second half. Most teams choose to receive or defer, because choosing to kick the ball to start the game allows the other team to choose which goal to defend.[89] Teams switch goals following the first and third quarters.[90] If a down is in progress when a quarter ends, play continues until the down is completed.[91][92][93] If certain fouls are committed during play while time has expired, the quarter may be extended through an untimed down.[94]

Games last longer than their defined length due to play stoppages—the average NFL game lasts slightly over three hours.[95] Time in a football game is measured by the game clock. An operator is responsible for starting, stopping and operating the game clock based on the direction of the appropriate official.[85][96] A separate play clock is used to show the amount of time within which the offense must initiate a play. The play clock is set to 25 seconds after certain administrative stoppages in play and to 40 seconds when play is proceeding without such stoppages. If the offense fails to start a play before the play clock reads "00", a delay of game foul is called on the offense.[91][97][98]

Advancing the ball and downs

There are two main ways the offense can advance the ball: running and passing. In a typical play, the center passes the ball backwards and between their legs to the quarterback in a process known as the snap. The quarterback then either hands the ball off to a running back, throws the ball, or runs with it. The play ends when the player with the ball is tackled or goes out-of-bounds or a pass hits the ground without a player having caught it. A forward pass can be legally attempted only if the passer is behind the line of scrimmage; only one forward pass can be attempted per down.[71] As in rugby, players can also pass the ball backwards at any point during a play.[99] In the NFL, a down also ends immediately if the runner's helmet comes off.[100]

The offense is given a series of four plays, known as downs. If the offense advances ten or more yards in the four downs, they are awarded a new set of four downs. If they fail to advance ten yards, possession of the football is turned over to the defense. In most situations, if the offense reaches their fourth down they will punt the ball to the other team, which forces them to begin their drive from farther down the field; if they are in field goal range, they might attempt to score a field goal instead.[71] A group of officials, the chain crew, keeps track of both the downs and the distance measurements.[101] On television, a yellow line is electronically superimposed on the field to show the first down line to the viewing audience.[102]

Kicking

There are two categories of kicks in football: scrimmage kicks, which can be executed by the offensive team on any down from behind or on the line of scrimmage,[105][106][107] and free kicks.[108][109][110] The free kicks are the kickoff, which starts the first and third quarters and overtime and follows a try attempt or a successful field goal; the safety kick follows a safety.[106][111][112]

On a kickoff, the ball is placed at the 35-yard line of the kicking team in professional and college play and at the 40-yard line in high school play. The ball may be drop kicked or place kicked. If a place kick is chosen, the ball can be placed on the ground or a tee; a holder may be used in either case. On a safety kick, the kicking team kicks the ball from their own 20-yard line. They can punt, drop kick or place kick the ball, but a tee may not be used in professional play. Any member of the receiving team may catch or advance the ball. The ball may be recovered by the kicking team once it has gone at least ten yards and has touched the ground or has been touched by any member of the receiving team.[113][114][115]

The three types of scrimmage kicks are place kicks, drop kicks, and punts. Only place kicks and drop kicks can score points.[67][68][69] The place kick is the standard method used to score points,[103] because the pointy shape of the football makes it difficult to reliably drop kick.[103][104] Once the ball has been kicked from a scrimmage kick, it can be advanced by the kicking team only if it is caught or recovered behind the line of scrimmage. If it is touched or recovered by the kicking team beyond this line, it becomes dead at the spot where it was touched.[116][117][118] The kicking team is prohibited from interfering with the receiver's opportunity to catch the ball. The receiving team has the option of signaling for a fair catch, which prohibits the defense from blocking into or tackling the receiver. The play ends as soon as the ball is caught, and the ball may not be advanced.[119][120][121]

Officials and fouls

See also: Official (American football), Chain crew, and Penalty (gridiron football)

Officials are responsible for enforcing game rules and monitoring the clock. All officials carry a whistle and wear black-and-white striped shirts and black hats except for the referee, whose hat is white. Each carries a weighted yellow flag that is thrown to the ground to signal that a foul has been called. An official who spots multiple fouls will throw their hat as a secondary signal.[122] Women can serve as officials; Sarah Thomas became the NFL's first female official in 2015.[123] The seven officials (of a standard seven-man crew; lower levels of play up to the college level use fewer officials) on the field are each tasked with a different set of responsibilities:[122]

• The referee: is positioned behind and to the side of the offensive backs. The referee is charged with oversight and control of the game and is the authority on the score, the down number, and any rule interpretations in discussions among the other officials. The referee announces all penalties and discusses the infraction with the offending team's captain, monitors for illegal hits against the quarterback, makes requests for first-down measurements, and notifies the head coach whenever a player is ejected. The referee positions themselves to the passing arm side of the quarterback. In most games, the referee is responsible for spotting the football prior to a play from scrimmage.

• The umpire: is positioned in the defensive backfield, except in the NFL, where the umpire is positioned lateral to the referee on the opposite side of the formation. The umpire watches play along the line of scrimmage to make sure that no more than 11 offensive players are on the field before the snap, and that no offensive linemen are illegally downfield on pass plays. The umpire monitors contact between offensive and defensive linemen and calls most of the holding penalties. The umpire records the number of timeouts taken and the winner of the coin toss and game score. They also assist the referee in situations involving possession of the ball close to the line of scrimmage, determines whether player equipment is legal, and dries wet balls prior to the snap if a game is played in rain.

• The back judge: is positioned deep in the defensive backfield, behind the umpire. The back judge ensures that the defensive team has no more than 11 players on the field and determines whether catches are legal, whether field goal or extra point attempts are good, and whether a pass interference violation occurred. The back judge is also responsible for the play clock, the time between each play, when a visible play clock is not used.

• The head linesman/down judge: is positioned on one end of the line of scrimmage. The head linesman/down judge watches for any line-of-scrimmage and illegal use-of-hands violations and assists the line judge with illegal shift or illegal motion calls. The head linesman/down judge also rules on out-of-bounds calls that happen on their side of the field, oversees the chain crew, and marks the forward progress of a runner when a play has been whistled dead.

• The side judge: is positioned twenty yards downfield of the head linesman. The side judge mainly duplicates the functions of the field judge. On field goal and extra point attempts, the side judge is positioned lateral to the umpire.

• The line judge: is positioned on the end of the line of scrimmage, opposite the head linesman. They supervise player substitutions, the line of scrimmage during punts, and game timing. The line judge notifies the referee when time has expired at the end of a quarter and notifies the head coach of the home team when five minutes remain for halftime. In the NFL, the line judge also alerts the referee when two minutes remain in the half. If the clock malfunctions or becomes inoperable, the line judge becomes the official timekeeper.

• The field judge: is positioned twenty yards downfield from the line judge. The field judge monitors and controls the play clock, counts the number of defensive players on the field, and watches for offensive pass interference and illegal use-of-hands violations by offensive players. The field judge also makes decisions regarding catches, recoveries, the ball spot when a player goes out of bounds, and illegal touching of fumbled balls that have crossed the line of scrimmage. On field goal and extra point attempts, the field judge is stationed under the upright opposite the back judge.

• The center judge: is an eighth official used only in the top level of college football. The center judge stands lateral to the referee, the same way the umpire does in the NFL. The center judge is responsible for spotting the football after each play and has many of the same responsibilities as the referee, except announcing penalties.

Another set of officials, the chain crew, are responsible for moving the chains. The chains, consisting of two large sticks with a 10-yard-long chain between them, are used to measure for a first down. The chain crew stays on the sidelines during the game, but if requested by the officials they will briefly bring the chains on to the field to measure. A typical chain crew will have at least three people—two members of the chain crew will hold either of the two sticks, while a third will hold the down marker. The down marker, a large stick with a dial on it, is flipped after each play to indicate the current down and is typically moved to the approximate spot of the ball. The chain crew system has been used for over 100 years and is considered an accurate measure of distance, rarely subject to criticism from either side.[101]

Safety and brain health

See also: Protective equipment in gridiron football and Health issues in American football

Football is a full-contact sport, and injuries are relatively common. Most injuries occur during training sessions, particularly ones that involve contact between players.[124] To try to prevent injuries, players are required to wear a set of equipment. At a minimum players must wear a football helmet and a set of shoulder pads, but individual leagues may require additional padding such as thigh pads and guards, knee pads, chest protectors, and mouthguards.[125][126][127] Most injuries occur in the lower extremities, particularly in the knee, but a significant number also affect the upper extremities. The most common types of injuries are strains, sprains, bruises, fractures, dislocations, and concussions.[124]

Repeated concussions (and possibly sub-concussive head impacts[128]) can increase a person's risk in later life for CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and health issues such as dementia, Parkinson's disease, and depression.[129] Concussions are often caused by helmet-to-helmet or upper-body contact between opposing players, although helmets have prevented more serious injuries such as skull fractures.[130] Various programs are aiming to reduce concussions by reducing the frequency of helmet-to-helmet hits; USA Football's "Heads Up Football" program aims to reduce concussions in youth football by teaching coaches and players about the signs of a concussion, the proper way to wear football equipment and ensure it fits, and proper tackling methods that avoid helmet-to-helmet contact.[131] However, a study in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine found that Heads Up Football was ineffective; the same study noted that more extensive reforms implemented by Pop Warner Little Scholars and its member teams were effective in significantly reducing concussion rates.[132]

A 2018 study performed by the VA Boston Healthcare System and the Boston University School of Medicine found that tackle football before age 12 was correlated with earlier onset of symptoms of CTE, but not with symptom severity. More specifically, each year a player played tackle football under age 12 predicted earlier onset of cognitive, behavioral, and mood problems by an average of two and a half years.[133][134][135]

Leagues and tournaments

See also: Comparisons between the National Football League and NCAA football

The National Football League (NFL) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are the most popular football leagues in the United States.[136] The National Football League was founded in 1920[137] and has since become the largest and most popular sport in the United States.[138] The NFL has the highest average attendance of any sporting league in the world, with an average attendance of 66,960 during the 2011 NFL season.[139] The NFL championship game is called the Super Bowl, and is among the biggest events in club sports worldwide.[140] It is played between the champions of the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC), and its winner is awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.[141]

College football is the third-most popular sport in the United States, behind professional baseball and professional football.[142] The NCAA, the largest collegiate organization, is divided into three Divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III.[143] Division I football is further divided into two subdivisions: the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).[144] The champions of each level of play are determined through NCAA-sanctioned playoff systems; while the champion of Division I-FBS was historically determined by various polls and ranking systems, the subdivision adopted a four-team playoff system in 2014.[145]

High school football is the most popular sport in the United States played by boys; over 1.1 million boys participated in the sport from 2007 to 2008 according to a survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). There is a stark contrast in youth football participation between boys and girls. Only one youth football league exists in the United States for girls, the GFL. The NFHS is the largest organization for high school football, with member associations in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. USA Football is the governing body for youth and amateur football,[146] and Pop Warner Little Scholars is the largest organization for youth football.[147]

Other professional leagues

Rival leagues

The most successful league to directly compete with the NFL was the American Football League (AFL), which existed from 1960 to 1969. The AFL became a significant rival in 1964 before signing a five-year, US$36 million television deal with NBC. AFL teams began signing NFL players to contracts, and the league's popularity grew to challenge that of the NFL. The two leagues merged in the 1970 season, and all the AFL teams joined the NFL. An earlier league, the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), was in play from 1946 to 1949. After it had dissolved, two AAFC teams, the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers, became members of the NFL; another member, the Baltimore Colts joined the league, but folded after just a year in the NFL.[148]

Other attempts to start rival leagues since the AFL merged with the NFL in 1970 have been far less successful, as professional football salaries and the NFL's television contracts began to escalate out of the reach of competitors and the NFL covered more of the larger cities. The World Football League (WFL) played for two seasons, in 1974 and 1975, but faced such severe monetary issues it could not pay its players. In its second and final season the WFL attempted to establish a stable credit rating, but the league disbanded before the season could be completed.[149] The United States Football League (USFL) operated for three seasons from 1983 to 1985. Originally not intended as a rival league, the entry of owners who sought marquee talent and to challenge the NFL led to an escalation in salaries and ensuing financial losses. A subsequent US$1.5 billion antitrust lawsuit against the NFL was successful in court, but the league was awarded only $1 in damages, which was automatically tripled to $3 under antitrust law.[150]

Complementary national leagues

The original XFL, created in 2001 by Vince McMahon, lasted for only one season. Despite television contracts with NBC and UPN, and high expectations, the XFL suffered from low quality of play and poor reception for its use of tawdry professional wrestling gimmicks, which caused initially high ratings and attendance to collapse.[151] The XFL was rebooted in 2020.[152] However, after only five weeks of play, the league's operations slowly came to a close due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,[153] and filed for bankruptcy on April 13.[154] The United Football League (UFL) began in 2009 but folded after suspending its 2012 season amid declining interest and lack of major television coverage.[155] The Alliance of American Football lasted less than one season, unable to keep investors.[156]

International play

American football leagues exist throughout the world, but the game has yet to achieve the international success and popularity of baseball and basketball.[157] It is not an Olympic sport, but it was a demonstration sport at the 1932 Summer Olympics.[158] At the international level, Canada, Mexico, and Japan are considered to be second-tier, while Austria, Germany, and France would rank among a third tier. These countries rank far below the United States, which is dominant at the international level.[159]

NFL Europa, the developmental league of the NFL, operated from 1991 to 1992 and then from 1995 to 2007. At the time of its closure, NFL Europa had five teams based in Germany and one in the Netherlands.[160] In Germany, the German Football League (GFL) has 16 teams and has operated for over 40 seasons, with the league's championship game, the German Bowl, closing out each season. The league operates in a promotion and relegation structure with German Football League 2 (GFL2), which also has 16 teams.[161] The BIG6 European Football League functions as a continental championship for Europe. The competition is contested between the top six European teams.[161]

The United Kingdom also operated several teams within NFL Europe during the League's tenure.[162] The resulting rise in popularity of the sport brought the NFL back to the country in 2007 where they now hold the NFL International Series in London, currently consisting of four regular season games.[163][164] The continuing interest and growth in both the sport and the series has led to the possible formation of a potential NFL franchise in London[165][166][167]

An American football league system already exists within the UK, the BAFANL, which has run under various guises since 1983. It currently has 70 teams operating across the tiers of contact football in which teams aim to earn promotion to the Division above, with the Premier Division teams competing to win the Britbowl, the annual British Football Bowl game that has been played since 1985.[168][169][170] In 2007, the British Universities American Football League was formed. From 2008, the BUAFL was officially associated with the National Football League (NFL), through its partner organization NFL UK.[171] In 2012, BUAFL's league and teams were absorbed into BUCS after American football became an official BUCS sport.[172] Over the period 2007 to 2014, the BUAFL grew from 42 teams and 2,460 participants to 75 teams and over 4,100 people involved.[173]

American football federations are present in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania; a total of 75 national football federations exist as of 2023.[174] The International Federation of American Football (IFAF), an international governing body composed of continental federations, runs tournaments such as the IFAF World Championship, the IFAF Women's World Championship, the IFAF U-19 World Championship, and the Flag Football World Championship. The IFAF also organizes the annual International Bowl game.[175] The IFAF has received provisional recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).[176] Several major obstacles hinder the IFAF goal of achieving status as an Olympic sport. These include the predominant participation of men in international play and the short three-week Olympic schedule. Large team sizes are an additional difficulty, due to the Olympics' set limit of 10,500 athletes and coaches. American football also has an issue with a lack of global visibility. Nigel Melville, the CEO of USA Rugby, noted that "American football is recognized globally as a sport, but it's not played globally." To solve these concerns, major effort has been put into promoting flag football, a modified version of American football, at the international level.[159] Flag football has been shortlisted for appearance at the 2028 Summer Olympics, pending final approval by the International Olympic Committee.[177]

Popularity and cultural influence

United States

Main article: American football in the United States

"Baseball is still called the national pastime, but football is by far the more popular sport in American society", according to ESPN.com's Sean McAdam.[178] In a 2014 poll conducted by Harris Interactive, professional football ranked as the most popular sport, and college football ranked third behind only professional football and baseball; 46% of participants ranked some form of the game as their favorite sport. Professional football has ranked as the most popular sport in the poll since 1985, when it surpassed baseball for the first time.[179] Professional football is most popular among those who live in the eastern United States and rural areas, while college football is most popular in the southern United States and among people with graduate and post-graduate degrees.[180] Football is also the most-played sport by high school and college athletes in the United States. As of 2022, the National Football Foundation reports nearly 1.04 million high-school athletes play the sport, with another 81,000 college athletes across both the NCAA and the NAIA;[4] in comparison, the second-most played sport, basketball, had around 920,000 participants in high school and 63,000 in college.[181]

The Super Bowl is the most popular single-day sporting event in the United States,[35] and is among the biggest club sporting events in the world in terms of TV viewership.[140] The NFL made approximately $12 billion in revenue in 2022.[182] Super Bowl games account for eight of the top ten most-watched broadcasts in American history; Super Bowl LVII, played on February 12, 2023, was watched by a record 115.1 million Americans,[183] and is second only to the Apollo 11 moon landing (125 million viewers).[184]

American football also plays a significant role in American culture. The day on which the Super Bowl is held is considered a de facto national holiday,[185] and in parts of the country like Texas, the sport has been compared to a religion.[186][187] Football is also linked to other holidays; New Year's Day is traditionally the date for several college football bowl games, including the Rose Bowl. However, if New Year's Day is on a Sunday, the bowl games are moved to another date so as not to conflict with the typical NFL Sunday schedule.[188] Thanksgiving football is another American tradition,[189] hosting many high school, college, and professional games.[190] Implicit rules such as playing through pain and sacrificing for the better of the team are promoted in football culture.[191]

Other countries

See also: American football in Australia, American football in Brazil, American football in Japan, and American football in the United Kingdom

In Canada, the game has a significant following. According to a 2013 poll, 21% of respondents said they followed the NFL "very closely" or "fairly closely", making it the third-most followed league behind the National Hockey League (NHL) and Canadian Football League (CFL).[192] American football also has a long history in Mexico, which was introduced to the sport in 1896. It was the second-most popular sport in Mexico in the 1950s, with the game being particularly popular in colleges.[193] The Los Angeles Times notes the NFL claims over 16 million fans in Mexico, which places the country third behind the U.S. and Canada.[194] American football is played in Mexico both professionally and as part of the college sports system.[195] A professional league, the Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional (LFA), was founded in 2016.[196]

Japan was introduced to the sport in 1934 by Paul Rusch, a teacher and Christian missionary who helped to establish football teams at three universities in Tokyo.[197] Play was halted during World War II by order of Emperor Hirohito, but the sport began growing in popularity again after the war.[198] As of 2010, there are more than 400 high school football teams in Japan, with over 15,000 participants, and over 100 teams play in the Kantoh Collegiate Football Association (KCFA).[197] The X-League is the largest American football league in Japan, and the largest American football league in the world to use a promotion-relegation system. Some teams in the X-League, like the Panasonic Impulse, are sponsored by corporations, and all Japanese players on these teams are employed by the corporation. The league operates in separate spring and fall seasons, with each team playing five games. The top eight teams make the playoffs, which are played in Tokyo Dome; the champion is determined by the Rice Bowl.[198]

Europe is a major target for the expansion of the game by football organizers. In the United Kingdom in the 1980s, the sport was popular, with the 1986 Super Bowl being watched by over four million people (about 1 out of every 14 Britons). Its popularity faded during the 1990s, coinciding with the establishment of the Premier League—top level of the English football league system. According to BBC America, there is a "social stigma" surrounding American football in the UK, with many Brits feeling the sport has no right to call itself "football" due to the lack of emphasis on kicking.[199] Nonetheless, the sport has retained a following in the United Kingdom; the NFL operates a media network in the country, and since 2007 has hosted the NFL International Series in London. Super Bowl viewership has also rebounded, with over 4.4 million Britons watching Super Bowl XLVI.[200] The sport is played in European countries like Switzerland, which has American football clubs in every major city,[201] and Germany, where the sport has around 45,000 registered amateur players.[195]

In Brazil, football is a growing sport. It was generally unknown there until the 1980s when a small group of players began playing on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. The sport grew gradually with 700 amateur players registering within 20 years. Games were played on the beach with modified rules and without the traditional football equipment due to its lack of availability in Brazil. Eventually, a tournament, the Carioca championship, was founded, with the championship Carioca Bowl played to determine a league champion. The country saw its first full-pad game of football in October 2008.[202] According to The Rio Times, the sport is one of the fastest-growing sports in Brazil and is almost as commonly played as soccer on the beaches of Copacabana and Botafogo.[203]

Football in Brazil is governed by the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol Americano (CBFA), which had over 5,000 registered players as of November 2013. The sport's increase in popularity has been attributed to games aired on ESPN, which began airing in Brazil in 1992 with Portuguese commentary.[204] The popularity and "easy accessibility" of non-contact versions of the sport in Brazil has led to a rise in participation by female players.[203] According to ESPN, the American football audience in Brazil increased 800% between 2013 and 2016. The network, along with Esporte Interativo, airs games there on cable television. The NFL has expressed interest in having games in the country, and the Super Bowl has become a widely watched event in Brazil at bars and movie theaters.[205]

Further countries have also expressed interest in football to lesser degrees. The Arab world has expressed growing interest in American football, with many countries in the region being members of IFAF Asia. Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which are not members of IFAF, have established their own domestic leagues. Egypt established two leagues for the sport, namely the Egyptian League of American Football and the Egyptian Federation of American Football, and Saudi Arabia hosts two teams based out of Jeddah and Yanbu respectively.[206][207] China has additionally been a target for the expansion of the sport, with the Mainland being the home of the Chinese National Football League as well as a growing audience of Super Bowl watchers. Three franchises are also based out of Hong Kong, which prior to the COVID-19 pandemic regularly played mainland teams. NFL games average 900,000 viewers in China, though the league has cited logistical challenges which would prevent teams from playing games akin to abroad games in European countries.[208]

Variations and related sports

See also: Canadian football, Arena football, and Flag football

Canadian football, the predominant form of football in Canada, is closely related to American football—both sports developed from rugby and are considered to be the chief variants of gridiron football.[209] Although both games share a similar set of rules, there are several key rule differences: for example, in Canadian football the field measures 150 by 65 yards (137 by 59 m), including two 20-yard end zones (for a distance between goal lines of 110 yards),[210] teams have three downs instead of four, there are twelve players on each side instead of eleven,[211] fair catches are not allowed, and a rouge, worth a single point is scored if the offensive team kicks the ball out of the defense's end zone.[212] The Canadian Football League (CFL) is the major Canadian league and is the second-most popular sporting league in Canada, behind the National Hockey League.[212] The NFL and CFL had a formal working relationship from 1997 to 2006.[213] The CFL has a strategic partnership with two American football leagues, the German Football League (GFL) and the Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional (LFA).[214] The Canadian rules were developed separately from the American game.

Indoor football leagues constitute what The New York Times writer Mike Tanier described as the "most minor of minor leagues." Leagues are unstable, with franchises regularly moving from one league to another or merging with other teams, and teams or entire leagues dissolving completely; games are only attended by a small number of fans, and most players are semi-professional athletes. The Indoor Football League is an example of a prominent indoor league.[215] The Arena Football League, which was founded in 1987 and ceased operations in 2019, was one of the longest-lived indoor football leagues.[216] In 2004, the league was called "America's fifth major sport" by ESPN The Magazine.[217]

There are several non-contact variants of football, such as flag football.[218] In flag football the ball-carrier is not tackled; instead, defenders aim to pull a flag tied around the ball-carrier's waist.[219] Another variant, touch football, simply requires the ball-carrier to be touched to be considered downed. Depending on the rules used, a game of touch football may require the ball-carrier be touched with either one or two hands to be considered downed.[220]

See also

• American football strategy

• Comparison of American football and rugby union

• Comparison of American football and rugby league

• Doping in American football

• Fantasy football (gridiron)

• List of American football films

• Lists of American football players

• List of American football stadiums by capacity

• List of American and Canadian football leagues

• Women's gridiron football

Notes

1.  The terms "gridiron football", "gridiron", and "grid" are sometimes used as synonyms for American football.[1] They are also used in a broader sense that includes Canadian football, a football code that is very similar to American football.[2]

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References

• Bennett, Tom (1976). The Pro Style: The Complete Guide to Understanding National Football League Strategy. Los Angeles: National Football League Properties, Inc., Creative Services Division.

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Further reading

• Football: Great Writing About the National Sport, edited by John Schulian; 2014 (New York: Library of America; ISBN 978-1598533071).

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately 9.4 inches (24 cm) in diameter) through the defender's hoop (a basket 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter mounted 10 feet (3.05 m) high to a backboard at each end of the court), while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

Players advance the ball by bouncing it while walking or running (dribbling) or by passing it to a teammate, both of which require considerable skill. On offense, players may use a variety of shots – the layup, the jump shot, or a dunk; on defense, they may steal the ball from a dribbler, intercept passes, or block shots; either offense or defense may collect a rebound, that is, a missed shot that bounces from rim or backboard. It is a violation to lift or drag one's pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling.

The five players on each side fall into five playing positions. The tallest player is usually the center, the second-tallest and strongest is the power forward, a slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implement the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.

Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sports.[1][2] The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the most significant professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition[3][4] (drawing most of its talent from U.S. college basketball). Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the EuroLeague and the Basketball Champions League Americas. The FIBA Basketball World Cup and Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament are the major international events of the sport and attract top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for national teams, like EuroBasket and FIBA AmeriCup.

The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and women's Olympic basketball tournament feature top national teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA (NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship is also popular), whereas the strongest European clubs participate in the EuroLeague Women.

History

Main article: History of basketball

Early history

A game similar to basketball is mentioned in a 1591 book published in Frankfurt am Main that reports on the lifestyles and customs of coastal North American residents, Wahrhafftige Abconterfaytung der Wilden (German; translates as Truthful Depictions of the Savages:[5] "Among other things, a game of skill is described in which balls must be thrown against a target woven from twigs, mounted high on a pole. There's a small reward for the player if the target is being hit."[6]

Creation

In December 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian-American professor of physical education and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts,[7] was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day.[8] He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he invented a new game in which players would pass a ball to teammates and try to score points by tossing the ball into a basket mounted on a wall.

Naismith wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto an elevated track. Naismith initially set up the peach basket with its bottom intact, which meant that the ball had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored. This quickly proved tedious, so Naismith removed the bottom of the basket to allow the balls to be poked out with a long dowel after each scored basket.

Shortly after, Senda Berenson, instructor of physical culture at the nearby Smith College, went to Naismith to learn more about the game.[9] Fascinated by the new sport and the values it could teach, she started to organize games with her pupils, following adjusted rules.[10] The first official women's interinstitutional game was played barely 11 months later, between the University of California and Miss Head's School.[11] In 1899, a committee was established at the Conference of Physical Training in Springfield to draw up general rules for women's basketball. Thus, the sport quickly spread throughout America's schools, colleges and universities with uniform rules for both sexes.[12]

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. These round balls from "association football" were made, at the time, with a set of laces to close off the hole needed for inserting the inflatable bladder after the other sewn-together segments of the ball's cover had been flipped outside-in.[13][14] These laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable.[15] Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith (whereas in American football, the lace construction proved to be advantageous for gripping and remains to this day). The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls.[dubious – discuss] Dribbling was common by 1896, with a rule against the double dribble by 1898.[16]

The peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. A further change was soon made, so the ball merely passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, their team would gain a point. Whichever team got the most points won the game.[17] The baskets were originally nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators in the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference; it had the additional effect of allowing rebound shots.[18] Naismith's handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children's game called duck on a rock, as many had failed before it.[19]

Frank Mahan, one of the players from the original first game, approached Naismith after the Christmas break, in early 1892, asking him what he intended to call his new game. Naismith replied that he had not thought of it because he had been focused on just getting the game started. Mahan suggested that it be called "Naismith ball", at which he laughed, saying that a name like that would kill any game. Mahan then said, "Why not call it basketball?" Naismith replied, "We have a basket and a ball, and it seems to me that would be a good name for it."[20][21] The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany, New York, on January 20, 1892, with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m), on a court just half the size of a present-day Streetball or National Basketball Association (NBA) court.

At the time, soccer was being played with 10 to a team (which was increased to 11). When winter weather got too icy to play soccer, teams were taken indoors, and it was convenient to have them split in half and play basketball with five on each side. By 1897–98, teams of five became standard.

College basketball

Main article: College basketball

Basketball's early adherents were dispatched to YMCAs throughout the United States, and it quickly spread through the United States and Canada. By 1895, it was well established at several women's high schools. While YMCA was responsible for initially developing and spreading the game, within a decade it discouraged the new sport, as rough play and rowdy crowds began to detract from YMCA's primary mission. However, other amateur sports clubs, colleges, and professional clubs quickly filled the void. In the years before World War I, the Amateur Athletic Union and the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (forerunner of the NCAA) vied for control over the rules for the game. The first pro league, the National Basketball League, was formed in 1898 to protect players from exploitation and to promote a less rough game. This league only lasted five years.

James Naismith was instrumental in establishing college basketball. His colleague C. O. Beamis fielded the first college basketball team just a year after the Springfield YMCA game at the suburban Pittsburgh Geneva College.[22] Naismith himself later coached at the University of Kansas for six years, before handing the reins to renowned coach Forrest "Phog" Allen. Naismith's disciple Amos Alonzo Stagg brought basketball to the University of Chicago, while Adolph Rupp, a student of Naismith's at Kansas, enjoyed great success as coach at the University of Kentucky. On February 9, 1895, the first intercollegiate 5-on-5 game was played at Hamline University between Hamline and the School of Agriculture, which was affiliated with the University of Minnesota.[23][24][25] The School of Agriculture won in a 9–3 game.

In 1901, colleges, including the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, the University of Minnesota, the U.S. Naval Academy, the University of Colorado and Yale University began sponsoring men's games. In 1905, frequent injuries on the football field prompted President Theodore Roosevelt to suggest that colleges form a governing body, resulting in the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). In 1910, that body changed its name to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The first Canadian interuniversity basketball game was played at YMCA in Kingston, Ontario on February 6, 1904, when McGill University – Naismith's alma mater – visited Queen's University. McGill won 9–7 in overtime; the score was 7–7 at the end of regulation play, and a ten-minute overtime period settled the outcome. A good turnout of spectators watched the game.[26]

The first men's national championship tournament, the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball tournament, which still exists as the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) tournament, was organized in 1937. The first national championship for NCAA teams, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in New York, was organized in 1938; the NCAA national tournament began one year later. College basketball was rocked by gambling scandals from 1948 to 1951, when dozens of players from top teams were implicated in game-fixing and point shaving. Partially spurred by an association with cheating, the NIT lost support to the NCAA tournament.

High school basketball

A basketball game between the Heart Mountain and Powell High School girls teams, Wyoming, March 1944A photo taken during a high school basketball game in 2024. Demonstrates the extreme disparities in terms of physical maturity that can be seen between opposing players.

Before widespread school district consolidation, most American high schools were far smaller than their present-day counterparts. During the first decades of the 20th century, basketball quickly became the ideal interscholastic sport due to its modest equipment and personnel requirements. In the days before widespread television coverage of professional and college sports, the popularity of high school basketball was unrivaled in many parts of America. Perhaps the most legendary of high school teams was Indiana's Franklin Wonder Five, which took the nation by storm during the 1920s, dominating Indiana basketball and earning national recognition.

Today virtually every high school in the United States fields a basketball team in varsity competition.[27] Basketball's popularity remains high, both in rural areas where they carry the identification of the entire community, as well as at some larger schools known for their basketball teams where many players go on to participate at higher levels of competition after graduation. In the 2016–17 season, 980,673 boys and girls represented their schools in interscholastic basketball competition, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.[28] The states of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky are particularly well known for their residents' devotion to high school basketball, commonly called Hoosier Hysteria in Indiana; the critically acclaimed film Hoosiers shows high school basketball's depth of meaning to these communities.

⁣There is currently no tournament to determine a national high school champion. The most serious effort was the National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament at the University of Chicago from 1917 to 1930. The event was organized by Amos Alonzo Stagg and sent invitations to state champion teams. The tournament started out as a mostly Midwest affair but grew. In 1929 it had 29 state champions. Faced with opposition from the National Federation of State High School Associations and North Central Association of Colleges and Schools that bore a threat of the schools losing their accreditation the last tournament was in 1930. The organizations said they were concerned that the tournament was being used to recruit professional players from the prep ranks.[29] The tournament did not invite minority schools or private/parochial schools.

The National Catholic Interscholastic Basketball Tournament ran from 1924 to 1941 at Loyola University.[30] The National Catholic Invitational Basketball Tournament from 1954 to 1978 played at a series of venues, including Catholic University, Georgetown and George Mason.[31] The National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament for Black High Schools was held from 1929 to 1942 at Hampton Institute.[32] The National Invitational Interscholastic Basketball Tournament was held from 1941 to 1967 starting out at Tuskegee Institute. Following a pause during World War II it resumed at Tennessee State College in Nashville. The basis for the champion dwindled after 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education began an integration of schools. The last tournaments were held at Alabama State College from 1964 to 1967.[33]

Professional basketball

Teams abounded throughout the 1920s. There were hundreds of men's professional basketball teams in towns and cities all over the United States, and little organization of the professional game. Players jumped from team to team and teams played in armories and smoky dance halls. Leagues came and went. Barnstorming squads such as the Original Celtics and two all-African American teams, the New York Renaissance Five ("Rens") and the (still existing) Harlem Globetrotters played up to two hundred games a year on their national tours.

In 1946, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) was formed. The first game was played in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between the Toronto Huskies and New York Knickerbockers on November 1, 1946. Three seasons later, in 1949, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). By the 1950s, basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way for a growth of interest in professional basketball. In 1959, a basketball hall of fame was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts, site of the first game. Its rosters include the names of great players, coaches, referees and people who have contributed significantly to the development of the game. The hall of fame has people who have accomplished many goals in their career in basketball. An upstart organization, the American Basketball Association, emerged in 1967 and briefly threatened the NBA's dominance until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. Today the NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition.

The NBA has featured many famous players, including George Mikan, the first dominating "big man"; ball-handling wizard Bob Cousy and defensive genius Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics; charismatic center Wilt Chamberlain, who originally played for the barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters; all-around stars Oscar Robertson and Jerry West; more recent big men Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Karl Malone; playmakers John Stockton, Isiah Thomas and Steve Nash; crowd-pleasing forwards Julius Erving and Charles Barkley; European stars Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Nikola Jokić and Tony Parker; Latin American stars Manu Ginobili, more recent superstars, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, etc.; and the three players who many credit with ushering the professional game to its highest level of popularity during the 1980s and 1990s: Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and Michael Jordan.

In 2001, the NBA formed a developmental league, the National Basketball Development League (later known as the NBA D-League and then the NBA G League after a branding deal with Gatorade). As of the 2023–24 season, the G League has 31 teams.

International basketball

FIBA (International Basketball Federation) was formed in 1932 by eight founding nations: Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland. At this time, the organization only oversaw amateur players. Its acronym, derived from the French Fédération Internationale de Basket-ball Amateur, was thus "FIBA". Men's basketball was first included at the Berlin 1936 Summer Olympics, although a demonstration tournament was held in 1904. The United States defeated Canada in the first final, played outdoors. This competition has usually been dominated by the United States, whose team has won all but three titles. The first of these came in a controversial final game in Munich in 1972 against the Soviet Union, in which the ending of the game was replayed three times until the Soviet Union finally came out on top.[34] In 1950 the first FIBA World Championship for men, now known as the FIBA Basketball World Cup, was held in Argentina. Three years later, the first FIBA World Championship for women, now known as the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, was held in Chile. Women's basketball was added to the Olympics in 1976, which were held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada with teams such as the Soviet Union, Brazil and Australia rivaling the American squads.

In 1989, FIBA allowed professional NBA players to participate in the Olympics for the first time. Prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics, only European and South American teams were allowed to field professionals in the Olympics. The United States' dominance continued with the introduction of the original Dream Team. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, the United States suffered its first Olympic loss while using professional players, falling to Puerto Rico (in a 19-point loss) and Lithuania in group games, and being eliminated in the semifinals by Argentina. It eventually won the bronze medal defeating Lithuania, finishing behind Argentina and Italy. The Redeem Team, won gold at the 2008 Olympics, and the B-Team, won gold at the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey despite featuring no players from the 2008 squad. The United States continued its dominance as they won gold at the 2012 Olympics, 2014 FIBA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

Worldwide, basketball tournaments are held for boys and girls of all age levels. The global popularity of the sport is reflected in the nationalities represented in the NBA. Players from all six inhabited continents currently play in the NBA. Top international players began coming into the NBA in the mid-1990s, including Croatians Dražen Petrović and Toni Kukoč, Serbian Vlade Divac, Lithuanians Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis, Dutchman Rik Smits and German Detlef Schrempf.

In the Philippines, the Philippine Basketball Association's first game was played on April 9, 1975, at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines. It was founded as a "rebellion" of several teams from the now-defunct Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association, which was tightly controlled by the Basketball Association of the Philippines (now defunct), the then-FIBA recognized national association. Nine teams from the MICAA participated in the league's first season that opened on April 9, 1975. The NBL is Australia's pre-eminent men's professional basketball league. The league commenced in 1979, playing a winter season (April–September) and did so until the completion of the 20th season in 1998. The 1998–99 season, which commenced only months later, was the first season after the shift to the current summer season format (October–April). This shift was an attempt to avoid competing directly against Australia's various football codes. It features 8 teams from around Australia and one in New Zealand. A few players including Luc Longley, Andrew Gaze, Shane Heal, Chris Anstey and Andrew Bogut made it big internationally, becoming poster figures for the sport in Australia. The Women's National Basketball League began in 1981.

Women's basketball

See also: Women's basketball

Women began to play basketball in the fall of 1892 at Smith College through Senda Berenson, substitute director of the newly opened gymnasium and physical education teacher, after having modified the rules for women. Shortly after Berenson was hired at Smith, she visited Naismith to learn more about the game.[9] Fascinated by the new sport and the values it could teach, she instantly introduced the game as a class exercise and soon after teams were organized. The first women's collegiate basketball game was played on March 21, 1893, when her Smith freshmen and sophomores played against one another.[10][35] The first official women's interinstitutional game was played later that year between the University of California and the Miss Head's School.[11] In 1899, a committee was established at the Conference of Physical Training in Springfield to draw up general rules for women's basketball.[36] These rules, designed by Berenson, were published in 1899.[12] In 1902 Berenson became the editor of A. G. Spalding's first Women's Basketball Guide.[10] The same year women of Mount Holyoke and Sophie Newcomb College (coached by Clara Gregory Baer), began playing basketball. By 1895, the game had spread to colleges across the country, including Wellesley, Vassar, and Bryn Mawr. The first intercollegiate women's game was on April 4, 1896. Stanford women played Berkeley, 9-on-9, ending in a 2–1 Stanford victory.

Women's basketball development was more structured than that for men in the early years. In 1905, the executive committee on Basket Ball Rules (National Women's Basketball Committee) was created by the American Physical Education Association.[37] These rules called for six to nine players per team and 11 officials. The International Women's Sports Federation (1924) included a women's basketball competition. 37 women's high school varsity basketball or state tournaments were held by 1925. And in 1926, the Amateur Athletic Union backed the first national women's basketball championship, complete with men's rules.[37] The Edmonton Grads, a touring Canadian women's team based in Edmonton, Alberta, operated between 1915 and 1940. The Grads toured all over North America, and were exceptionally successful. They posted a record of 522 wins and only 20 losses over that span, as they met any team that wanted to challenge them, funding their tours from gate receipts.[38] The Grads also shone on several exhibition trips to Europe, and won four consecutive exhibition Olympics tournaments, in 1924, 1928, 1932, and 1936; however, women's basketball was not an official Olympic sport until 1976. The Grads' players were unpaid, and had to remain single. The Grads' style focused on team play, without overly emphasizing skills of individual players. The first women's AAU All-America team was chosen in 1929.[37] Women's industrial leagues sprang up throughout the United States, producing famous athletes, including Babe Didrikson of the Golden Cyclones, and the All American Red Heads Team, which competed against men's teams, using men's rules. By 1938, the women's national championship changed from a three-court game to two-court game with six players per team.[37]

The NBA-backed Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) began in 1997. Though it had shaky attendance figures, several marquee players (Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi, and Candace Parker among others) have helped the league's popularity and level of competition. Other professional women's basketball leagues in the United States, such as the American Basketball League (1996–98), have folded in part because of the popularity of the WNBA. The WNBA has been looked at by many as a niche league. However, the league has recently taken steps forward. In June 2007, the WNBA signed a contract extension with ESPN. The new television deal ran from 2009 to 2016. Along with this deal, came the first-ever rights fees to be paid to a women's professional sports league. Over the eight years of the contract, "millions and millions of dollars" were "dispersed to the league's teams." In a March 12, 2009, article, NBA commissioner David Stern said that in the bad economy, "the NBA is far less profitable than the WNBA. We're losing a lot of money among a large number of teams. We're budgeting the WNBA to break even this year."[39]

Rules and regulations

Main article: Rules of basketball

Measurements and time limits discussed in this section often vary among tournaments and organizations; international and NBA rules are used in this section.

The object of the game is to outscore one's opponents by throwing the ball through the opponents' basket from above while preventing the opponents from doing so on their own. An attempt to score in this way is called a shot. A successful shot is worth two points, or three points if it is taken from beyond the three-point arc 6.75 meters (22 ft 2 in) from the basket in international games[40] and 23 feet 9 inches (7.24 m) in NBA games.[41] A one-point shot can be earned when shooting from the foul line after a foul is made. After a team has scored from a field goal or free throw, play is resumed with a throw-in awarded to the non-scoring team taken from a point beyond the endline of the court where the points were scored.[42]

Playing regulations

Games are played in four quarters of 10 (FIBA)[43] or 12 minutes (NBA).[44] College men's games use two 20-minute halves,[45] college women's games use 10-minute quarters,[46] and most United States high school varsity games use 8-minute quarters; however, this varies from state to state.[47][48] 15 minutes are allowed for a half-time break under FIBA, NBA, and NCAA rules[45][49][50] and 10 minutes in United States high schools.[47] Overtime periods are five minutes in length[45][51][52] except for high school, which is four minutes in length.[47] Teams exchange baskets for the second half. The time allowed is actual playing time; the clock is stopped while the play is not active. Therefore, games generally take much longer to complete than the allotted game time, typically about two hours.

Five players from each team may be on the court at one time.[53][54][55][56] Substitutions are unlimited but can only be done when play is stopped. Teams also have a coach, who oversees the development and strategies of the team, and other team personnel such as assistant coaches, managers, statisticians, doctors and trainers.

For both men's and women's teams, a standard uniform consists of a pair of shorts and a jersey with a clearly visible number, unique within the team, printed on both the front and back. Players wear high-top sneakers that provide extra ankle support. Typically, team names, players' names and, outside of North America, sponsors are printed on the uniforms.

A limited number of time-outs, clock stoppages requested by a coach (or sometimes mandated in the NBA) for a short meeting with the players, are allowed. They generally last no longer than one minute (100 seconds in the NBA) unless, for televised games, a commercial break is needed.

The game is controlled by the officials consisting of the referee (referred to as crew chief in the NBA), one or two umpires (referred to as referees in the NBA) and the table officials. For college, the NBA, and many high schools, there are a total of three referees on the court. The table officials are responsible for keeping track of each team's scoring, timekeeping, individual and team fouls, player substitutions, team possession arrow, and the shot clock.

Equipment

Main articles: Basketball (ball), Basketball court, and Backboard (basketball)

The only essential equipment in a basketball game is the ball and the court: a flat, rectangular surface with baskets at opposite ends. Competitive levels require the use of more equipment such as clocks, score sheets, scoreboards, alternating possession arrows, and whistle-operated stop-clock systems.

A regulation basketball court in international games is 28 meters (92 feet) long and 15 meters (49 feet) wide. In the NBA and NCAA the court is 94 by 50 feet (29 by 15 meters).[41] Most courts have wood flooring, usually constructed from maple planks running in the same direction as the longer court dimension.[57][58] The name and logo of the home team is usually painted on or around the center circle.

The basket is a steel rim 18 inches (46 cm) diameter with an attached net affixed to a backboard that measures 6 by 3.5 feet (1.8 by 1.1 meters) and one basket is at each end of the court. The white outlined box on the backboard is 18 inches (46 cm) high and 2 feet (61 cm) wide. At almost all levels of competition, the top of the rim is exactly 10 feet (3.05 meters) above the court and 4 feet (1.22 meters) inside the baseline. While variation is possible in the dimensions of the court and backboard, it is considered important for the basket to be of the correct height – a rim that is off by just a few inches can have an adverse effect on shooting. The net must "check the ball momentarily as it passes through the basket" to aid the visual confirmation that the ball went through.[59] The act of checking the ball has the further advantage of slowing down the ball so the rebound does not go as far.[60]

The size of the basketball is also regulated. For men, the official ball is 29.5 inches (75 cm) in circumference (size 7, or a "295 ball") and weighs 22 oz (620 g). If women are playing, the official basketball size is 28.5 inches (72 cm) in circumference (size 6, or a "285 ball") with a weight of 20 oz (570 g). In 3x3, a formalized version of the halfcourt 3-on-3 game, a dedicated ball with the circumference of a size 6 ball but the weight of a size 7 ball is used in all competitions (men's, women's, and mixed teams).[61]

Violations

Main article: Violation (basketball)

The ball may be advanced toward the basket by being shot, passed between players, thrown, tapped, rolled or dribbled (bouncing the ball while running).

The ball must stay within the court; the last team to touch the ball before it travels out of bounds forfeits possession. The ball is out of bounds if it touches a boundary line, or touches any player or object that is out of bounds.

There are limits placed on the steps a player may take without dribbling, which commonly results in an infraction known as traveling. Nor may a player stop their dribble and then resume dribbling. A dribble that touches both hands is considered stopping the dribble, giving this infraction the name double dribble. Within a dribble, the player cannot carry the ball by placing their hand on the bottom of the ball; doing so is known as carrying the ball. A team, once having established ball control in the front half of their court, may not return the ball to the backcourt and be the first to touch it. A violation of these rules results in loss of possession.

The ball may not be kicked, nor be struck with the fist. For the offense, a violation of these rules results in loss of possession; for the defense, most leagues reset the shot clock and the offensive team is given possession of the ball out of bounds.

There are limits imposed on the time taken before progressing the ball past halfway (8 seconds in FIBA and the NBA; 10 seconds in NCAA and high school for both sexes), before attempting a shot (24 seconds in FIBA, the NBA, and U Sports (Canadian universities) play for both sexes, and 30 seconds in NCAA play for both sexes), holding the ball while closely guarded (5 seconds), and remaining in the restricted area known as the free-throw lane, (or the "key") (3 seconds). These rules are designed to promote more offense.

There are also limits on how players may block an opponent's field goal attempt or help a teammate's field goal attempt. Goaltending is a defender's touching of a ball that is on a downward flight toward the basket, while the related violation of basket interference is the touching of a ball that is on the rim or above the basket, or by a player reaching through the basket from below. Goaltending and basket interference committed by a defender result in awarding the basket to the offense, while basket interference committed by an offensive player results in cancelling the basket if one is scored. The defense gains possession in all cases of goaltending or basket interference.

Fouls

Main articles: Personal foul (basketball) and Technical foul

An attempt to unfairly disadvantage an opponent through certain types of physical contact is illegal and is called a personal foul. These are most commonly committed by defensive players; however, they can be committed by offensive players as well. Players who are fouled either receive the ball to pass inbounds again, or receive one or more free throws if they are fouled in the act of shooting, depending on whether the shot was successful. One point is awarded for making a free throw, which is attempted from a line 15 feet (4.6 m) from the basket.

The referee is responsible for judging whether contact is illegal, sometimes resulting in controversy. The calling of fouls can vary between games, leagues and referees.

There is a second category of fouls called technical fouls, which may be charged for various rules violations including failure to properly record a player in the scorebook, or for unsportsmanlike conduct. These infractions result in one or two free throws, which may be taken by any of the five players on the court at the time. Repeated incidents can result in disqualification. A blatant foul involving physical contact that is either excessive or unnecessary is called an intentional foul (flagrant foul in the NBA). In FIBA and NCAA women's basketball, a foul resulting in ejection is called a disqualifying foul, while in leagues other than the NBA, such a foul is referred to as flagrant.

If a team exceeds a certain limit of team fouls in a given period (quarter or half) – four for NBA, NCAA women's, and international games – the opposing team is awarded one or two free throws on all subsequent non-shooting fouls for that period, the number depending on the league. In the US college men's game and high school games for both sexes, if a team reaches 7 fouls in a half, the opposing team is awarded one free throw, along with a second shot if the first is made. This is called shooting "one-and-one". If a team exceeds 10 fouls in the half, the opposing team is awarded two free throws on all subsequent fouls for the half.

When a team shoots foul shots, the opponents may not interfere with the shooter, nor may they try to regain possession until the last or potentially last free throw is in the air.

After a team has committed a specified number of fouls, the other team is said to be "in the bonus". On scoreboards, this is usually signified with an indicator light reading "Bonus" or "Penalty" with an illuminated directional arrow or dot indicating that team is to receive free throws when fouled by the opposing team. (Some scoreboards also indicate the number of fouls committed.)

If a team misses the first shot of a two-shot situation, the opposing team must wait for the completion of the second shot before attempting to reclaim possession of the ball and continuing play.

If a player is fouled while attempting a shot and the shot is unsuccessful, the player is awarded a number of free throws equal to the value of the attempted shot. A player fouled while attempting a regular two-point shot thus receives two shots, and a player fouled while attempting a three-point shot receives three shots.

If a player is fouled while attempting a shot and the shot is successful, typically the player will be awarded one additional free throw for one point. In combination with a regular shot, this is called a "three-point play" or "four-point play" (or more colloquially, an "and one") because of the basket made at the time of the foul (2 or 3 points) and the additional free throw (1 point).

A foul committed during a shot attempt

Common techniques and practices

Positions

Main article: Basketball positions

Although the rules do not specify any positions whatsoever, they have evolved as part of basketball. During the early years of basketball's evolution, two guards, two forwards, and one center were used. In more recent times specific positions evolved, but the current trend, advocated by many top coaches including Mike Krzyzewski, is towards positionless basketball, where big players are free to shoot from outside and dribble if their skill allows it.[62] Popular descriptions of positions include:

Point guard (often called the "1") : usually the fastest player on the team, organizes the team's offense by controlling the ball and making sure that it gets to the right player at the right time.

Shooting guard (the "2") : creates a high volume of shots on offense, mainly long-ranged; and guards the opponent's best perimeter player on defense.

Small forward (the "3") : often primarily responsible for scoring points via cuts to the basket and dribble penetration; on defense seeks rebounds and steals, but sometimes plays more actively.

Power forward (the "4"): plays offensively often with their back to the basket; on defense, plays under the basket (in a zone defense) or against the opposing power forward (in man-to-man defense).

Center (the "5"): uses height and size to score (on offense), to protect the basket closely (on defense), or to rebound.

The above descriptions are flexible. For most teams today, the shooting guard and small forward have very similar responsibilities and are often called the wings, as do the power forward and center, who are often called post players. While most teams describe two players as guards, two as forwards, and one as a center, on some occasions teams choose to call them by different designations.

Strategy

Main article: Basketball playbook

There are two main defensive strategies: zone defense and man-to-man defense. In a zone defense, each player is assigned to guard a specific area of the court. Zone defenses often allow the defense to double team the ball, a manoeuver known as a trap. In a man-to-man defense, each defensive player guards a specific opponent.

Offensive plays are more varied, normally involving planned passes and movement by players without the ball. A quick movement by an offensive player without the ball to gain an advantageous position is known as a cut. A legal attempt by an offensive player to stop an opponent from guarding a teammate, by standing in the defender's way such that the teammate cuts next to him, is a screen or pick. The two plays are combined in the pick and roll, in which a player sets a pick and then "rolls" away from the pick towards the basket. Screens and cuts are very important in offensive plays; these allow the quick passes and teamwork, which can lead to a successful basket. Teams almost always have several offensive plays planned to ensure their movement is not predictable. On court, the point guard is usually responsible for indicating which play will occur.

Shooting".

Shooting is the act of attempting to score points by throwing the ball through the basket, methods varying with players and situations.

Typically, a player faces the basket with both feet facing the basket. A player will rest the ball on the fingertips of the dominant hand (the shooting arm) slightly above the head, with the other hand supporting the side of the ball. The ball is usually shot by jumping (though not always) and extending the shooting arm. The shooting arm, fully extended with the wrist fully bent, is held stationary for a moment following the release of the ball, known as a follow-through. Players often try to put a steady backspin on the ball to absorb its impact with the rim. The ideal trajectory of the shot is somewhat controversial, but generally a proper arc is recommended. Players may shoot directly into the basket or may use the backboard to redirect the ball into the basket.

The two most common shots that use the above described setup are the set shot and the jump shot. Both are preceded by a crouching action which preloads the muscles and increases the power of the shot. In a set shot, the shooter straightens up and throws from a standing position with neither foot leaving the floor; this is typically used for free throws. For a jump shot, the throw is taken in mid-air with the ball being released near the top of the jump. This provides much greater power and range, and it also allows the player to elevate over the defender. Failure to release the ball before the feet return to the floor is considered a traveling violation.

Another common shot is called the layup. This shot requires the player to be in motion toward the basket, and to "lay" the ball "up" and into the basket, typically off the backboard (the backboard-free, underhand version is called a finger roll). The most crowd-pleasing and typically highest-percentage accuracy shot is the slam dunk, in which the player jumps very high and throws the ball downward, through the basket while touching it.

Another shot that is less common than the layup, is the "circus shot". The circus shot is a low-percentage shot that is flipped, heaved, scooped, or flung toward the hoop while the shooter is off-balance, airborne, falling down or facing away from the basket. A back-shot is a shot taken when the player is facing away from the basket, and may be shot with the dominant hand, or both; but there is a very low chance that the shot will be successful.[63]

A shot that misses both the rim and the backboard completely is referred to as an air ball. A particularly bad shot, or one that only hits the backboard, is jocularly called a brick. The hang time is the length of time a player stays in the air after jumping, either to make a slam dunk, layup or jump shot.

Rebounding

Main article: Rebound (basketball)

The objective of rebounding is to successfully gain possession of the basketball after a missed field goal or free throw, as it rebounds from the hoop or backboard. This plays a major role in the game, as most possessions end when a team misses a shot. There are two categories of rebounds: offensive rebounds, in which the ball is recovered by the offensive side and does not change possession, and defensive rebounds, in which the defending team gains possession of the loose ball. The majority of rebounds are defensive, as the team on defense tends to be in better position to recover missed shots; for example, about 75% of rebounds in the NBA are defensive.[64]

Passing

See also: Assist (basketball)

A pass is a method of moving the ball between players. Most passes are accompanied by a step forward to increase power and are followed through with the hands to ensure accuracy.

A staple pass is the chest pass. The ball is passed directly from the passer's chest to the receiver's chest. A proper chest pass involves an outward snap of the thumbs to add velocity and leaves the defence little time to react.

Another type of pass is the bounce pass. Here, the passer bounces the ball crisply about two-thirds of the way from his own chest to the receiver. The ball strikes the court and bounces up toward the receiver. The bounce pass takes longer to complete than the chest pass, but it is also harder for the opposing team to intercept (kicking the ball deliberately is a violation). Thus, players often use the bounce pass in crowded moments, or to pass around a defender.

The overhead pass is used to pass the ball over a defender. The ball is released while over the passer's head.

The outlet pass occurs after a team gets a defensive rebound. The next pass after the rebound is the outlet pass.

The crucial aspect of any good pass is it being difficult to intercept. Good passers can pass the ball with great accuracy and they know exactly where each of their other teammates prefers to receive the ball. A special way of doing this is passing the ball without looking at the receiving teammate. This is called a no-look pass.

Another advanced style of passing is the behind-the-back pass, which, as the description implies, involves throwing the ball behind the passer's back to a teammate. Although some players can perform such a pass effectively, many coaches discourage no-look or behind-the-back passes, believing them to be difficult to control and more likely to result in turnovers or violations.

Dribbling

Duration: 59 seconds.

0:59A demonstration of the basic types of dribbling in basketbal

Main article: Dribble

Dribbling is the act of bouncing the ball continuously with one hand and is a requirement for a player to take steps with the ball. To dribble, a player pushes the ball down towards the ground with the fingertips rather than patting it; this ensures greater control.

When dribbling past an opponent, the dribbler should dribble with the hand farthest from the opponent, making it more difficult for the defensive player to get to the ball. It is therefore important for a player to be able to dribble competently with both hands.

Good dribblers (or "ball handlers") tend to keep their dribbling hand low to the ground, reducing the distance of travel of the ball from the floor to the hand, making it more difficult for the defender to "steal" the ball. Good ball handlers frequently dribble behind their backs, between their legs, and switch directions suddenly, making a less predictable dribbling pattern that is more difficult to defend against. This is called a crossover, which is the most effective way to move past defenders while dribbling.

A skilled player can dribble without watching the ball, using the dribbling motion or peripheral vision to keep track of the ball's location. By not having to focus on the ball, a player can look for teammates or scoring opportunities, as well as avoid the danger of having someone steal the ball away from him/her.

Blocking

Main article: Block (basketball)

A block is performed when, after a shot is attempted, a defender succeeds in altering the shot by touching the ball. In almost all variants of play, it is illegal to touch the ball after it is in the downward path of its arc; this is known as goaltending. It is also illegal under NBA and Men's NCAA basketball to block a shot after it has touched the backboard, or when any part of the ball is directly above the rim. Under international rules it is illegal to block a shot that is in the downward path of its arc or one that has touched the backboard until the ball has hit the rim. After the ball hits the rim, it is again legal to touch it even though it is no longer considered as a block performed.

To block a shot, a player has to be able to reach a point higher than where the shot is released. Thus, height can be an advantage in blocking. Players who are taller and playing the power forward or center positions generally record more blocks than players who are shorter and playing the guard positions. However, with good timing and a sufficiently high vertical leap, even shorter players can be effective shot blockers.

Height

At the professional level, most male players are above 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) and most women above 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m). Guards, for whom physical coordination and ball-handling skills are crucial, tend to be the smallest players. Almost all forwards in the top men's pro leagues are 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) or taller. Most centers are over 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) tall. According to a survey given to all NBA teams,[when?] the average height of all NBA players is just under 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m), with the average weight being close to 222 pounds (101 kg). The tallest players ever in the NBA were Manute Bol and Gheorghe Mureșan, who were both 7 feet 7 inches (2.31 m) tall. At 7 feet 2 inches (2.18 m), Margo Dydek was the tallest player in the history of the WNBA.

The shortest player ever to play in the NBA is Muggsy Bogues at 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m).[65] Other average-height or relatively short players have thrived at the pro level, including Anthony "Spud" Webb, who was 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall, but had a 42-inch (1.1 m) vertical leap, giving him significant height when jumping, and Temeka Johnson, who won the WNBA Rookie of the Year Award and a championship with the Phoenix Mercury while standing only 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m). While shorter players are often at a disadvantage in certain aspects of the game, their ability to navigate quickly through crowded areas of the court and steal the ball by reaching low are strengths.

Players regularly inflate their height in high school or college. Many prospects exaggerate their height while in high school or college to make themselves more appealing to coaches and scouts, who prefer taller players. Charles Barkley stated; "I've been measured at 6–5, 6-4

+

3⁄4. But I started in college at 6–6." Sam Smith, a former writer from the Chicago Tribune, said: "We sort of know the heights, because after camp, the sheet comes out. But you use that height, and the player gets mad. And then you hear from his agent. Or you file your story with the right height, and the copy desk changes it because they have the 'official' N.B.A. media guide, which is wrong. So you sort of go along with the joke."[66]

Since the 2019–20 NBA season heights of NBA players are recorded definitively by measuring players with their shoes off.[67]

Variations and similar games

Main article: Variations of basketball

Variations of basketball are activities based on the game of basketball, using common basketball skills and equipment (primarily the ball and basket). Some variations only have superficial rule changes, while others are distinct games with varying degrees of influence from basketball. Other variations include children's games, contests or activities meant to help players reinforce skills.

An earlier version of basketball, played primarily by women and girls, was six-on-six basketball. Horseball is a game played on horseback where a ball is handled and points are scored by shooting it through a high net (approximately 1.5m×1.5m). The sport is like a combination of polo, rugby, and basketball. There is even a form played on donkeys known as Donkey basketball, which has attracted criticism from animal rights groups.

Half-court

Perhaps the single most common variation of basketball is the half-court game, played in informal settings without referees or strict rules. Only one basket is used, and the ball must be "taken back" or "cleared" – passed or dribbled outside the three-point line each time possession of the ball changes from one team to the other. Half-court games require less cardiovascular stamina, since players need not run back and forth a full court. Half-court raises the number of players that can use a court or, conversely, can be played if there is an insufficient number to form full 5-on-5 teams.

Half-court basketball is usually played 1-on-1, 2-on-2 or 3-on-3. The last of these variations is gradually gaining official recognition as 3x3, originally known as FIBA 33. It was first tested at the 2007 Asian Indoor Games in Macau and the first official tournaments were held at the 2009 Asian Youth Games and the 2010 Youth Olympics, both in Singapore. The first FIBA 3x3 Youth World Championships[68] were held in Rimini, Italy in 2011, with the first FIBA 3x3 World Championships for senior teams following a year later in Athens. The sport is highly tipped to become an Olympic sport as early as 2016.[69] In the summer of 2017, the BIG3 basketball league, a professional 3x3 half court basketball league that features former NBA players, began. The BIG3 features several rule variants including a four-point field goal.[70]

Other variations

Variations of basketball with their own page or subsection include:

• 21 (also known as American, cutthroat and roughhouse)[71]

• 42

• Around the World

• Bounce

• Firing Squad

• Fives

• H-O-R-S-E

• Hotshot

• Knockout

• One-shot conquer

• Steal The Bacon

• Tip-it

• Tips

• "The One"

• Basketball War

• Water basketball

• Beach basketball

• Streetball

• One-on-one is a variation in which two players will use only a small section of the court (often no more than a half of a court) and compete to play the ball into a single hoop. Such games tend to emphasize individual dribbling and ball stealing skills over shooting and team play.

• Dunk Hoops is a variation played on basketball hoops with lowered (under basketball regulation 10 feet) rims. It originated when the popularity of the slam dunk grew and was developed to create better chances for dunks with lowered rims and using altered goaltending rules.

• Unicycle basketball is played using a regulation basketball on a regular basketball court with the same rules, for example, one must dribble the ball while riding. There are a number of rules that are particular to unicycle basketball as well, for example, a player must have at least one foot on a pedal when in-bounding the ball. Unicycle basketball is usually played using 24" or smaller unicycles, and using plastic pedals, both to preserve the court and the players' shins. Popular unicycle basketball games are organized in North America.[72]

Spin-offs from basketball that are now separate sports include:

• Ringball, a traditional South African sport that stems from basketball, has been played since 1907. The sport is now promoted in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, India, and Mauritius to establish Ringball as an international sport.

• Korfball (Dutch: Korfbal, korf meaning 'basket') started in the Netherlands and is now played worldwide as a mixed-gender team ball game, similar to mixed netball and basketball.

• Netball is a limited-contact team sport in which two teams of seven try to score points against one another by placing a ball through a high hoop. Australia New Zealand champions (so called ANZ Championship) is very famous in Australia and New Zealand as the premier netball league. Formerly played exclusively by women, netball today features mixed-gender competitions.

• Slamball, invented by television writer Mason Gordon, is a full-contact sport featuring trampolines. The main difference from basketball is the court; below the padded rim and backboard are four trampolines set into the floor, which serve to propel players to great heights for slam dunks. The rules also permit some physical contact between the members of the four-player teams. Professional games of Slamball aired on Spike TV in 2002, and the sport has since expanded to China and other countries.

• A basketball court on Baana - Helsinki, Finland.

Social forms of basketball

Basketball as a social and communal sport features environments, rules and demographics different from those seen in professional and televised basketball.

Recreational basketball

Basketball is played widely as an extracurricular, intramural or amateur sport in schools and colleges. Notable institutions of recreational basketball include:

• Basketball schools and academies, where students are trained in developing basketball fundamentals, undergo fitness and endurance exercises and learn various basketball skills. Basketball students learn proper ways of passing, ball handling, dribbling, shooting from various distances, rebounding, offensive moves, defense, layups, screens, basketball rules and basketball ethics. Also popular are the basketball camps organized for various occasions, often to get prepared for basketball events, and basketball clinics for improving skills.

• College and university basketball played in educational institutions of higher learning. This includes National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) intercollegiate basketball.

Disabled basketball

• Deaf basketball: One of several deaf sports, deaf basketball relies on signing for communication. Any deaf sporting event that happens, its purpose is to serve as a catalyst for the socialization of a low-incidence and geographically dispersed population.[73]

• Wheelchair basketball: A sport based on basketball but designed for disabled people in wheelchairs and considered one of the major disabled sports practiced. There is a functional classification system that is used to help determine if the wheelchair basketball player classification system reflects the existing differences in the performance of elite female players. This system gives an analysis of the players' functional resources through field-testing and game observation. During this system's process, players are assigned a score of 1 to 4.5.[74]

Other forms

• Biddy basketball played by minors, sometimes in formal tournaments, around the globe.

• Midnight basketball, an initiative to curb inner-city crime in the United States and elsewhere by engaging youth in urban areas with sports as an alternative to drugs and crime.

• Rezball, short for reservation ball, is the avid Native American following of basketball, particularly a style of play particular to Native American teams of some areas.

Fantasy basketball

Main article: Fantasy basketball

Fantasy basketball was popularized during the 1990s by ESPN Fantasy Sports, NBA.com, and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports. On the model of fantasy baseball and football, players create fictional teams, select professional basketball players to "play" on these teams through a mock draft or trades, then calculate points based on the players' real-world performance.

Basics of fantasy basketball

1. League Setup:

   • You can join public leagues or create private leagues with friends.

   • Popular platforms include ESPN, Yahoo Sports, Sleeper, and Fantrax.

2. Draft:

   • A draft (snake or auction) is held at the beginning of the season.

   • Participants select NBA players to form their teams.

3. Scoring Formats:

   • Points League: Players earn points based on specific stats (e.g., 2 points per rebound, 1.5 points per assist).

   • Categories League: Teams compete in specific categories (e.g., best in assists, steals).

   • Rotisserie (Roto): Teams rank in each category, and rankings are combined to determine the overall score.

4. Roster Management:

   • Teams set lineups daily or weekly, determining which players' stats will count.

   • You can trade players, pick up free agents, or drop underperforming players.

5. Playoffs:

   • At the end of the regular NBA season, fantasy leagues often have playoffs to determine the champion.

See also

For a topical guide, see Outline of basketball.

• Basketball moves

• Basketball National League

• Continental Basketball Association

• Glossary of basketball terms

• Index of basketball-related articles

• List of basketball films

• List of basketball leagues

• Timeline of women's basketball

• ULEB, Union des Ligues Européennes de Basket, in English Union of European Leagues of Basketball

References

Citations

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26.  Queen's Journal, vol. 31, no. 7, February 16, 1904; 105 years of Canadian university basketball, by Earl Zukerman, "broken link". Archived from the original on October 1, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2009.

27.  2008–09 High School Athletics Participation Survey NFHS.

28.  "2016–17 High School Athletics Participation Survey" (PDF). National Federation of State High School Associations. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 25, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2018.

29.  "National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament – hoopedeia.nba.com – Retrieved September 13, 2009". Hoopedia.nba.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2010. Retrieved July 25, 2010.

30.  "National Catholic Interscholastic Basketball Tournament, 1924–1941 – hoopedia.nba.com – Retrieved September 13, 2009". Hoopedia.nba.com. December 7, 1941. Archived from the original on August 10, 2010. Retrieved July 25, 2010.

31.  "National Catholic Invitations Basketball Tournament – hoopedia.nba.com – Retrieved September 13, 2009". Hoopedia.nba.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2010. Retrieved July 25, 2010.

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33.  "National Invitational Interscholastic Basketball Tournament – hoopedia.nba.com – Retrieved September 13, 2009". Hoopedia.nba.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2010. Retrieved July 25, 2010.

34.  Golden, Daniel (July 23, 2012). "Three Seconds at 1972 Olympics Haunt U.S. Basketball". Bloomberg Business Week. Archived from the original on January 9, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2014.

35.  Peacock-Broyles, Trinity. "You Come in as a Squirrel and Leave as an Owl". Smith.edu. Archived from the original on June 15, 2011. Retrieved June 3, 2011.

36.  The conference took place at the YMCA training school - see newsclip (archived)

37.  "Historical Timeline". Archived from the original on June 21, 2009. Retrieved June 2, 2009.

38.  "The Great Teams". Archived from the original on August 12, 2010. Retrieved June 2, 2009.

39.  Television New Zealand, BASKETBALL | NBA getting through tough times Archived March 18, 2015, at the Wayback Machine

40.  "Everything You Need to Know About Basketball Court Dimensions | PROformance Hoops". proformancehoops.com. June 7, 2019. Retrieved January 8, 2021.

41.  "Official Rules of the National Basketball Association 2013–2014" (PDF). NBA.com. pp. 8–9. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 12, 2018.

42.  "NBA Official Rules 2018–19" (PDF). pp. 29–30. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved May 28, 2020.

43.  FIBA Official Basketball Rules (2010)[dead link] Rule 4, Section 8.1 Retrieved July 26, 2010

44.  NBA Official Rules (2009–2010) Archived January 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Rule 5, Section II, a. Retrieved July 26, 2010.

45.  2009–2011 Men's & Women's Basketball Rules Archived August 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Rule 5, Section 6, Article 1. Retrieved July 26, 2010.

46.  "NCAA panel approves women's basketball rules changes". ESPN.com. Associated Press. June 8, 2015. Archived from the original on June 9, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2015.

47.  Struckhoff, Mary, ed. (2009). 2009–2010 NFHS Basketball Rules. Indianapolis, Indiana: National Federation of High Schools. p. 41. Rule 5, Section 5, Article 1

48.  Stewart, Mark (June 25, 2015). "Varsity basketball games will have two 18-minute halves next season". Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on July 11, 2018. Retrieved July 11, 2018.

49.  NBA Official Rules (2009–2010) Archived January 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Rule 5, Section II, c. Retrieved July 26, 2010.

50.  FIBA Official Basketball Rules (2010)[dead link] Rule 4, Section 8.4 Retrieved July 26, 2010

51.  NBA Official Rules (2009–2010) Archived January 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Rule 5, Section II, b. Retrieved July 26, 2010.

52.  FIBA Official Basketball Rules (2010)[dead link] Rule 4, Section 8.7 Retrieved July 26, 2010

53.  FIBA Official Basketball Rules (2010)[dead link] Rule 3, Section 4.2.2 Retrieved July 26, 2010

54.  NBA Official Rules (2009–2010) Archived January 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Rule 3, Section I, a. Retrieved July 26, 2010.

55.  2009–2011 Men's & Women's Basketball Rules Archived August 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Rule 10, Section 2, Article 6. Retrieved July 26, 2010.

56.  Struckhoff, Mary, ed. (2009). 2009–2010 NFHS Basketball Rules. Indianapolis, Indiana: National Federation of High Schools. p. 59. Rule 10, Section 1, Article 6

57.  Lynch, William. "What Are the Different Types of Basketball Court Surfaces?". Archived from the original on March 23, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2016.

58.  "What Are the Different Types of Basketball Court Surfaces?". LIVESTRONG. February 7, 2014. Archived from the original on March 23, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2016.

59.  "Official Rules, RULE NO. 1: Court Dimensions – Equipment". National Basketball Association. October 15, 2018.

60.  Moniz, Brian (August 28, 2020). "Why Do Basketball Hoops Have Nets?". BasketballWorld. Archived from the original on August 10, 2023. Retrieved December 6, 2020.

61.  "Wilson to provide the Official Game Ball for FIBA" (Press release). Amer Sports. June 9, 2015. Archived from the original on September 3, 2015. Retrieved August 17, 2015.

62.  Marshall, John (November 1, 2014). "Positionless basketball taking hold in college". The Big Story. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014. Retrieved November 18, 2014.

63.  "WATCH: Curry pulls off circus shot and gets a foul". ABS-CBN News. November 17, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2021.

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65.  "Muggsy Bogues Bio". NBA.com. Archived from the original on July 17, 2010. Retrieved July 25, 2010.

66.  Noah Liberman (June 22, 2008). "When Height Becomes a Tall Tale". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 13, 2018. Retrieved February 1, 2019.

67.  "For years, some NBA players lied about their height. They can't anymore". Washington Post. Retrieved August 8, 2021.

68.  "2011 3x3 Youth World Championship". FIBA.com. September 11, 2011. Archived from the original on November 13, 2012. Retrieved November 22, 2012.

69.  Thomas, Vincent. "3-on-3 basketball might become big time?". ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures. Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2011.

70.  AP (June 26, 2017). "Big3 begins: Ice Cube's new 3-on-3 league starts with a bang". USA Today. Gannett. Archived from the original on December 10, 2017. Retrieved September 29, 2019.

71.  Eric Shanburn (2008). Basketball and Baseball Games: For the Driveway, Field Or the Alleyway. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4343-8912-1. Retrieved June 29, 2010.

72.  "Comcast SportsNet Feature about Berkeley Unicycle Basketball". Retrieved April 7, 2020.[permanent dead link]

73.  Stewart, David Alan (1991). Deaf Sport: the Impact of Sports within the Deaf Community. Gallaudet University Press. pp. 234. ISBN 9780930323745.

74.  Vanlandewijck, Yves C; Evaggelinou, Christina; Daly, Daniel J; Verellen, Joeri; Van Houtte, Siska; Aspeslagh, Vanessa; Hendrickx, Robby; Piessens, Tine; Zwakhoven, Bjorn (December 3, 2003). "The Relationship between Functional Potential and Field Performance in Elite Female Wheelchair Basketball Players". Journal of Sports Sciences. 22 (7). Taylor & Francis: 668–675. doi:10.1080/02640410310001655750. ISSN 0264-0414. OCLC 23080411. PMID 15370498. S2CID 27418917.

General references

• National Basketball Association (2014). "Official Rules of the National Basketball Association" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2015.

• International Basketball Federation (June 2004). Official Basketball Rules. Archived from the original on December 22, 2005.

• Reimer, Anthony (June 2005). "FIBA vs North American Rules Comparison". FIBA Assist (14): 40–44. Archived from the original on January 29, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2006.

• Bonsor, Kevin (March 10, 2003). "How Basketball Works: Who's Who". HowStuffWorks. Archived from the original on January 1, 2006. Retrieved January 11, 2006.

Further reading

• Adolph H, Grundman (2004). The golden age of amateur basketball: the AAU Tournament, 1921–1968. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-7117-4.

• Batchelor, Bob (2005). Basketball in America: from the playgrounds to Jordan's game and beyond. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7890-1613-3.

• Brown, Donald H (2007). A Basketball Handbook. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4259-6190-9.

• Coleman, Brian (1991). All You Wanted to Know About Basketball. Sterling publishing. ISBN 81-207-2576-X.

• Grundy, Pamela; Susan Shackelford (2005). Shattering the glass: the remarkable history of women's basketball. New Press. ISBN 1-56584-822-5.

• Herzog, Brad (2003). Hoopmania: The Book of Basketball History and Trivia. Rosen Pub. Group. ISBN 0-8239-3697-X.

• Naismith, James (1941). Basketball: its origin and development. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-8370-9.

• Simmons, Bill (2009). The book of basketball: the NBA according to the sports guy. Ballantine/ESPN Books. ISBN 978-0-345-51176-8. history of Basketball.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball

Tennis

Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket strung with a cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. If a player is unable to return the ball successfully, the opponent scores a point.[1][2]

Playable at all levels of society and at all ages, tennis can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. The original forms of tennis developed in France during the late Middle Ages.[3] The modern form of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis.[4] It had close connections to various field (lawn) games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis.[5]

The rules of modern tennis have changed little since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that until 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times,[6][7] and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s.[8] A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point-challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point, a system known as Hawk-Eye.[9][10]

Tennis is played by millions of recreational players and is a popular worldwide spectator sport.[11] The four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the majors) are especially popular and are considered the highest level of competition for the sport. These tournaments are the Australian Open, played on hardcourts; the French Open, played on red clay courts; Wimbledon, played on grass courts; and the US Open, also played on hardcourts.[12] Additionally, tennis was one of the original Olympic sports, and has been consistently competed in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988.

History

Main article: History of tennis

Predecessors

Historians believe that the game's ancient origin lay in 12th-century northern France, where a ball was struck with the palm of the hand.[13] Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de paume ("game of the palm"), which evolved into real tennis, and became notable as the first person to construct indoor tennis courts in the modern style. Louis was unhappy with playing tennis outdoors and accordingly had indoor, enclosed courts made in Paris "around the end of the 13th century".[14] In due course this design spread across royal palaces all over Europe.[14] In June 1316 at Vincennes, Val-de-Marne, and following a particularly exhausting game, Louis drank a large quantity of cooled wine and subsequently died of either pneumonia or pleurisy, although there was also suspicion of poisoning.[15] Because of the contemporary accounts of his death, Louis X is history's first tennis player known by name.[15] Another of the early enthusiasts of the game was King Charles V of France, who had a court set up at the Louvre Palace.[16]

The word tennis probably comes from the French term tenez, which can be translated as "hold!", "receive!" or "take!", an interjection used as a call from the server to his opponent.[17] It was popular in England and France, although the game was only played indoors, where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, which is now known as real tennis.[18]

An epitaph in St Michael's Church, Coventry, written c. 1705, read, in part:[19]

Here lyes an old toss'd Tennis Ball:
Was racketted, from spring to fall,
With so much heat and so much hast,
Time's arm for shame grew tyred at last.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, as real tennis declined, new racket sports emerged in England.[20]

The invention of the first lawn mower in Britain in 1830 is believed to have been a catalyst for the preparation of modern-style grass courts, sporting ovals, playing fields, pitches, greens, etc. This in turn led to the codification of modern rules for many sports, including lawn tennis, most football codes, lawn bowls and others.[21]

Origins of the modern game

Between 1859 and 1865, Harry Gem, a solicitor, and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of racquets and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, England.[22][23] In 1872, along with two local doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club on Avenue Road, Leamington Spa.[24] This is where "lawn tennis" was used as the name of an activity by a club for the first time.

In Tennis: A Cultural History, Heiner Gillmeister reveals that on 8 December 1874, British army officer Walter Clopton Wingfield wrote to Harry Gem, commenting that he (Wingfield) had been experimenting with his version of lawn tennis "for a year and a half".[25] In December 1873, Wingfield designed and patented a game which he called sphairistikè (Greek: σφαιριστική, meaning "ball-playing"), and which was soon known simply as "sticky" – for the amusement of guests at a garden party on his friend's estate of Nantclwyd Hall, in Llanelidan, Wales.[26] According to R. D. C. Evans, turfgrass agronomist, "Sports historians all agree that [Wingfield] deserves much of the credit for the development of modern tennis."[20][27] According to Honor Godfrey, museum curator at Wimbledon, Wingfield "popularized this game enormously. He produced a boxed set which included a net, poles, rackets, balls for playing the game – and most importantly you had his rules. He was absolutely terrific at marketing and he sent his game all over the world. He had very good connections with the clergy, the law profession, and the aristocracy and he sent thousands of sets out in the first year or so, in 1874."[28] The world's oldest annual tennis tournament took place at Leamington Lawn Tennis Club in Birmingham in 1874.[29] This was three years before the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club would hold its first championships at Wimbledon, in 1877. The first Championships culminated in a significant debate on how to standardise the rules.[28]

In the United States in 1874, Mary Ewing Outerbridge, a young socialite, returned from Bermuda with a sphairistikè set. She became fascinated by the game of tennis after watching British army officers play.[30] She laid out a tennis court at the Staten Island Cricket Club at Camp Washington, Tompkinsville, Staten Island, New York. The first American National championship was played there in September 1880. An Englishman named O.E. Woodhouse won the singles title, and a silver cup worth $100, by defeating Canadian I. F. Hellmuth.[31] There was also a doubles match which was won by a local pair. There were different rules at each club. The ball in Boston was larger than the one normally used in New York.

On 21 May 1881, the oldest nationwide tennis organization in the world[32] was formed, the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association) in order to standardize the rules and organize competitions.[33] The US National Men's Singles Championship, now the US Open, was first held in 1881 at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island.[34] The US National Women's Singles Championships were first held in 1887 in Philadelphia.[35]

Tennis also became popular in France, where the French Championships date to 1891, although until 1925 they were open only to tennis players who were members of French clubs.[36] Thus, Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open (dating to 1905) became and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis.[37][38] Together, these four events are called the Majors or Slams (a term borrowed from bridge rather than baseball).[39]

In 1913, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), now the International Tennis Federation (ITF), was founded and established three official tournaments as the major championships of the day. The World Grass Court Championships were awarded to Great Britain. The World Hard Court Championships were awarded to France; the term "hard court" was used for clay courts at the time. Some tournaments were held in Belgium instead. And the World Covered Court Championships for indoor courts were awarded annually; Sweden, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain each hosted the tournament.[40] At a meeting held on 16 March 1923 in Paris, the title "World Championship" was dropped and a new category of "Official Championship" was created for events in Great Britain, France, the US and Australia [41] – today's Grand Slam events.[40][42] The impact on the four recipient nations to replace the "world championships" with "official championships" was simple in a general sense: each became a major nation of the federation with enhanced voting power, and each now operated a major event.[40]

The comprehensive rules promulgated in 1924 by the ILTF have remained largely stable in the ensuing 80 years, the one major change being the addition of the tiebreak system designed by Jimmy Van Alen.[43] That same year, tennis withdrew from the Olympics after the 1924 Games, but returned 60 years later as a 21-and-under demonstration event in 1984. This reinstatement was credited by the efforts of then ITF president Philippe Chatrier, ITF general secretary David Gray and ITF vice president Pablo Llorens, with support from International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch. The success of the event was overwhelming, and the IOC decided to reintroduce tennis as a full-medal sport at Seoul in 1988.[44][45]

The Davis Cup, an annual competition between men's national teams, dates to 1900.[46] The analogous competition for women's national teams, the Fed Cup, was founded as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the ITF.[47]

In 1926, promoter C. C. Pyle established the first professional tennis tour with a group of American and French tennis players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences.[38][48] The most notable of these early professionals were the American Vinnie Richards and the Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen.[38][49] Players turned pro would no longer be permitted to compete in the major (amateur) tournaments.[38]

In 1968, commercial pressures and rumours of some amateurs taking money under the table led to the abandonment of this distinction, inaugurating the Open Era, in which all players could compete in all tournaments, and top players were able to make their living from tennis.[50] With the beginning of the Open Era, the establishment of an international professional tennis circuit, and revenues from the sale of television rights, tennis's popularity has spread worldwide, and the sport has shed its middle-class English-speaking image[51] (although it is acknowledged that this stereotype still exists).[51][52]

In 1954, Van Alen founded the International Tennis Hall of Fame, a nonprofit museum in Newport, Rhode Island.[53] The building contains a large collection of tennis memorabilia as well as a hall of fame honouring prominent members and tennis players from all over the world.[54]

Equipment

Main article: Tennis technology

Part of the appeal of tennis stems from the simplicity of equipment required for play. Beginners need only a racket and balls.[1]

Rackets

Main article: Racket (sports equipment) § Tennis

The components of a tennis racket include a handle, known as the grip, connected to a neck which joins a roughly elliptical frame that holds a matrix of tightly pulled strings. For the first 100 years of the modern game, rackets were made of wood and of standard size, and strings were of animal gut. Laminated wood construction yielded more strength in rackets used through most of the 20th century until first metal and then composites of carbon graphite, ceramics, and lighter metals such as titanium were introduced. These stronger materials enabled the production of oversized rackets that yielded yet more power. Meanwhile, technology led to the use of synthetic strings that match the feel of gut yet with added durability.

Under modern rules of tennis, the rackets must adhere to the following guidelines;[55]

• The hitting area, composed of the strings, must be flat and generally uniform.

• The frame of the hitting area may not be more than 29 inches (74 cm) in length and 12.5 inches (32 cm) in width.

• The entire racket must be of a fixed shape, size, weight, and weight distribution. There may not be any energy source built into the rackets.

• The rackets must not provide any kind of communication, instruction or advice to the player during the match.

The rules regarding rackets have changed over time, as material and engineering advances have been made. For example, the maximum length of the frame had been 32 inches (81 cm) until 1997, when it was shortened to 29 inches (74 cm).[56]

Many companies manufacture and distribute tennis rackets. Wilson, Head and Babolat are three of the most commonly used brands; however, many more companies exist.[57] The same companies sponsor players to use these rackets in the hopes that the company name will become better known by the public.

Strings

Main article: Strings (tennis)

There are multiple types of tennis strings, including natural gut and synthetic strings made from materials such as nylon, kevlar, or polyester.[58]

Natural gut

The first type of tennis strings available were natural gut strings, introduced by Babolat. They were the only type used until synthetic strings were introduced in the 1950s. Natural gut strings are still used frequently by players such as Roger Federer. They are made from cow intestines, and provide increased power, and are easier on the arm than most strings.[59]

Synthetic

Most synthetic strings are made from monofilament or multifiliament nylon strings. Monofilament strings are cheap to buy, and are used widely by many recreational level players for their all round performance, while multifilament strings are created to mimic natural gut more closely by weaving together fibres, but are generally more expensive than their monofilament counterparts.[58] Polyester strings allow for more spin on the ball than any other string, due to their firm strings, while keeping control of the ball, and this is why many players use them, especially higher player ones.[60] Kevlar tennis strings are highly durable, and are mostly used by players that frequently break strings, because they maintain tension well, but these strings can be stiff on the arm.[61]

Hybrid strings

Hybrid stringing is when a tennis racket is strung with two different strings for the mains (the vertical strings) and the crosses (the horizontal strings). This is most commonly done with two different strings that are made of different materials, but can also be done with two different types of the same string. A notable example of a player using hybrid strings is Roger Federer, using natural gut strings in his mains and polyester strings in his crosses.[62]

Balls

Main article: Tennis ball

Tennis balls were originally made of cloth strips stitched together with thread and stuffed with feathers.[63] Modern tennis balls are made of hollow vulcanized rubber with a felt coating. Traditionally white, the predominant colour was gradually changed to optic yellow in the latter part of the 20th century to allow for improved visibility. Tennis balls must conform to certain criteria for size, weight, deformation, and bounce to be approved for regulation play. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) defines the official diameter as 65.41–68.58 mm (2.575–2.700 in). Balls must weigh between 56.0 and 59.4 g (1.98 and 2.10 oz).[64] Tennis balls were traditionally manufactured in the United States and Europe. Although the process of producing the balls has remained virtually unchanged for the past 100 years, the majority of manufacturing now takes place in the Far East. The relocation is due to cheaper labour costs and materials in the region.[65] Tournaments that are played under the ITF Rules of Tennis must use balls that are approved by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and be named on the official ITF list of approved tennis balls.[66]

Manner of play

For individual terms, see Glossary of tennis terms.

Court

Main article: Tennis court

Tennis is played on a rectangular, flat surface. The court is 78 feet (23.77 m) long, and 27 feet (8.2 m) wide for singles matches and 36 ft (11 m) for doubles matches.[67] Additional clear space around the court is required in order for players to reach overrun balls. A net is stretched across the full width of the court, parallel with the baselines, dividing it into two equal ends. It is held up by either a cord or metal cable of diameter no greater than 0.8 cm (1⁄3 in).[66] The net is 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) high at the posts and 3 feet (0.91 m) high in the centre.[67] The net posts are 3 feet (0.91 m) outside the doubles court on each side or, for a singles net, 3 feet (0.91 m) outside the singles court on each side.

The modern tennis court owes its design to Major Walter Clopton Wingfield. In 1873, Wingfield patented a court much the same as the current one for his stické tennis (sphairistike). This template was modified in 1875 to the court design that exists today, with markings similar to Wingfield's version, but with the hourglass shape of his court changed to a rectangle.[68]

Tennis is unusual in that it is played on a variety of surfaces.[69] Grass, clay, and hard courts of concrete or asphalt topped with acrylic are the most common. Occasionally carpet is used for indoor play, with hardwood flooring having been historically used. Artificial turf courts can also be found.

Lines

The lines that delineate the width of the court are called the baseline (farthest back) and the service line (middle of the court). The short mark in the centre of each baseline is referred to as either the hash mark or the centre mark. The outermost lines that make up the length are called the doubles sidelines; they are the boundaries for doubles matches. The lines to the inside of the doubles sidelines are the singles sidelines, and are the boundaries in singles play. The area between a doubles sideline and the nearest singles sideline is called the doubles alley, playable in doubles play. The line that runs across the centre of a player's side of the court is called the service line because the serve must be delivered into the area between the service line and the net on the receiving side. Despite its name, this is not where a player legally stands when making a serve.[70]

The line dividing the service line in two is called the centre line or centre service line. The boxes this centre line creates are called the service boxes; depending on a player's position, they have to hit the ball into one of these when serving.[71] A ball is out only if none of it has hit the area inside the lines, or the line, upon its first bounce. All lines are required to be between 1 and 2 inches (25 and 51 mm) in width, with the exception of the baseline which can be up to 4 inches (100 mm) wide, although in practice it is often the same width as the others.[70]

Play of a single point

Main article: Point (tennis)

The players or teams start on opposite sides of the net. One player is designated the server, and the opposing player is the receiver. The choice to be server or receiver in the first game and the choice of ends is decided by a coin toss before the warm-up starts. Service alternates game by game between the two players or teams. For each point, the server starts behind the baseline, between the centre mark and the sideline. The receiver may start anywhere on their side of the net. When the receiver is ready, the server will serve, although the receiver must play to the pace of the server.

For a service to be legal, the ball must travel over the net without touching it into the diagonally opposite service box. If the ball hits the net but lands in the service box, this is a let or net service, which is void, and the server retakes that serve. The player can serve any number of let services in a point and they are always treated as voids and not as faults. A fault is a serve that falls long or wide of the service box, or does not clear the net. There is also a "foot fault" when a player's foot touches the baseline or an extension of the centre mark before the ball is hit. If the second service, after a fault, is also a fault, the server double faults, and the receiver wins the point. However, if the serve is in, it is considered a legal service.

A legal service starts a rally, in which the players alternate hitting the ball across the net. A legal return consists of a player hitting the ball so that it falls in the server's court, before it has bounced twice or hit any fixtures except the net. A player or team cannot hit the ball twice in a row. The ball must travel over or round the net into the other players' court. A ball that hits the net during a rally is considered a legal return as long as it crosses into the opposite side of the court. The first player or team to fail to make a legal return loses the point. The server then moves to the other side of the service line at the start of a new point.[72]

Scoring

Main article: Tennis scoring system

"Break point" redirects here. For the software term, see Breakpoint.

Game, set, match

Game

A game consists of a sequence of points played with the same player serving. A game is won by the first player to have won at least four points in total and at least two points more than the opponent. The running score of each game is described in a manner peculiar to tennis: scores from zero to three points are described as "love", "15", "30", and "40", respectively. If at least three points have been scored by each player, making the player's scores equal at 40 apiece, the score is not called out as "40–40", but rather as "deuce". If at least three points have been scored by each side and a player has one more point than their opponent, the score of the game is "advantage" for the player in the lead. During informal games, advantage can also be called "ad in" or "van in" when the serving player is ahead, and "ad out" or "van out" when the receiving player is ahead; alternatively, either player may simply call out "my ad" or "your ad".

The score of a tennis game during play is always read with the serving player's score first. In tournament play, the chair umpire calls the point count (e.g., "15–love") after each point. At the end of a game, the chair umpire also announces the winner of the game and the overall score.[73]

Set

A set consists of a sequence of games played with service alternating between games, ending when the count of games won meets certain criteria. Typically, a player wins a set by winning at least six games and at least two games more than the opponent. If one player has won six games and the opponent five, an additional game is played. If the leading player wins that game, the player wins the set 7–5. If the trailing player wins the game (tying the set 6–6) a tiebreak is played. A tiebreak, played under a separate set of rules, allows one player to win one more game and thus the set, to give a final set score of 7–6. A tiebreak game can be won by scoring at least seven points and at least two points more than the opponent. In a tiebreak, two players serve by 'ABBA' system which has been proven to be fair.[74] If a tiebreak is not played, the set is referred to as an advantage set, where the set continues without limit until one player leads by a two-game margin. A "love set" means that the loser of the set won zero games, colloquially termed a "jam donut" in the US.[75] In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the winner of the set and the overall score. The final score in sets is always read with the winning player's score first, e.g. "6–2, 4–6, 6–0, 7–5".

Match

A match consists of a sequence of sets. The outcome is determined through a best of three or five sets system. On the professional circuit, men play best-of-five-set matches at all four Grand Slam tournaments, Davis Cup, and the final of the Olympic Games and best-of-three-set matches at all other tournaments, while women play best-of-three-set matches at all tournaments. The first player to win two sets in a best-of-three, or three sets in a best-of-five, wins the match.[76] Only in the final sets of matches at the Fed Cup are tiebreaks not played. In these cases, sets are played indefinitely until one player has a two-game lead, occasionally leading to some remarkably long matches.

In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the end of the match with the well-known phrase "Game, set, match" followed by the winning person's or team's name.

Special point terms

Game point

A game point occurs in tennis whenever the player who is in the lead in the game needs only one more point to win the game. The terminology is extended to sets (set point), matches (match point), and even championships (championship point). For example, if the player who is serving has a score of 40–love, the player has a triple game point (triple set point, etc.) as the player has three consecutive chances to win the game. Game points, set points, and match points are not part of official scoring and are not announced by the chair umpire in tournament play.

Break point

A break point occurs if the receiver, not the server, has a chance to win the game with the next point. Break points are of particular importance because serving is generally considered advantageous, with servers being expected to win games in which they are serving. A receiver who has one (score of 30–40 or advantage), two (score of 15–40) or three (score of love–40) consecutive chances to win the game has break point, double break point or triple break point, respectively. If the receiver does, in fact, win their break point, the game is awarded to the receiver, and the receiver is said to have converted their break point. If the receiver fails to win their break point it is called a failure to convert. Winning break points, and thus the game, is also referred to as breaking serve, as the receiver has disrupted, or broken the natural advantage of the server. If in the following game the previous server also wins a break point it is referred to as breaking back. Except where tiebreaks apply, at least one break of serve is required to win a set (otherwise a two-game lead would never occur).

Rule variations

See also: Types of tennis match

• No ad

From 'No advantage'. Scoring method created by Jimmy Van Alen. The first player or doubles team to win four points wins the game, regardless of whether the player or team is ahead by two points. When the game score reaches three points each, the receiver chooses which side of the court (advantage court or deuce court) the service is to be delivered on the seventh and game-deciding point. Utilized by World Team Tennis professional competition, ATP tours, WTA tours, ITF Pro Doubles and ITF Junior Doubles.[77][78]

• Pro set

Instead of playing multiple sets, players may play one pro set. A pro set is first to 8 (or 10) games by a margin of two games, instead of first to 6 games. A 12-point tiebreak is usually played when the score is 8–8 (or 10–10). These are often played with no-ad scoring.

• Match tiebreak

This is sometimes played instead of a third set. A match tiebreak (also called super tiebreak) is played like a regular tiebreak, but the winner must win ten points instead of seven. Match tiebreaks are used in the Hopman Cup, Grand Slams (excluding Wimbledon) and the Olympic Games for mixed doubles; on the ATP (since 2006), WTA (since 2007) and ITF (excluding four Grand Slam tournaments and the Davis Cup) tours for doubles and as a player's choice in USTA league play.

• Fast4

Fast4 is a shortened format that offers a "fast" alternative, with four points, four games and four rules: there are no advantage scores, lets are played, tiebreakers apply at three games all, with it being first to five points with a "sudden death" point at four points all, and the first to four games wins the set. In the event of a no advantage deuce, the receiver gets to choose the service side. If a let occurs, the point continues as normal, and the non-receiver (in a doubles game) is permitted to return the serve. When players swap sides, they are not permitted to sit down and must be ready to play within sixty seconds. Between sets, players are permitted to sit down, and must be ready to play within ninety seconds.[79][80]

Another, however informal, tennis format is called Canadian doubles. This involves three players, with one person playing against a doubles team. The single player gets to utilize the alleys normally reserved only for a doubles team. Conversely, the doubles team does not use the alleys when executing a shot. The scoring is the same as for a regular game. This format is not sanctioned by any official body.

"Australian doubles", another informal and unsanctioned form of tennis, is played with similar rules to the Canadian doubles style, only in this version, players rotate court position after each game, each player taking a turn at playing alone against the other two. As such, each player plays doubles and singles over the course of a match, with the singles player always serving. Scoring styles vary, but one popular method is to assign a value of 2 points to each game, with the server taking both points if he or she holds serve and the doubles team each taking one if they break serve.

Wheelchair tennis can be played by able-bodied players as well as people who require a wheelchair for mobility. An extra bounce is permitted. This rule makes it possible to have mixed wheelchair and able-bodied matches. It is possible for a doubles team to consist of a wheelchair player and an able-bodied player (referred to as "one-up, one-down"), or for a wheelchair player to play against an able-bodied player. In such cases, the extra bounce is permitted for the wheelchair users only.

Match play

Continuity

A tennis match is intended to be continuous.[81] Because stamina is a relevant factor, arbitrary delays are not permitted. In most cases, service is required to occur no more than 20 seconds after the end of the previous point.[81] This is increased to 90 seconds when the players change ends (after every odd-numbered game), and a 2-minute break is permitted between sets.[81] Other than this, breaks are permitted only when forced by events beyond the players' control, such as rain, damaged footwear, damaged racket, or the need to retrieve an errant ball. Should a player be deemed to be stalling repeatedly, the chair umpire may initially give a warning followed by subsequent penalties of "point", "game", and default of the match for the player who is consistently taking longer than the allowed time limit.[82]

In the event of a rain delay, darkness or other external conditions halting play, the match is resumed at a later time, with the same score as at the time of the delay, and each player at the same end of the court as when rain halted play, or as close to the same relative compass point if play is resumed on a different court.

Ball changes

Balls wear out quickly in serious play and, therefore, in ATP and WTA tournaments, they are changed after every nine games with the first change occurring after only seven games, because the first set of balls is also used for the pre-match warm-up.[64] In ITF tournaments like Fed Cup, the balls are changed after every eleven games (rather than nine) with the first change occurring after only nine games (instead of seven). An exception is that a ball change may not take place at the beginning of a tiebreaker, in which case the ball change is delayed until the beginning of the second game of the next set.[66] As a courtesy to the receiver, the server will often signal to the receiver before the first serve of the game in which new balls are used as a reminder that they are using new balls. Continuity of the balls' condition is considered part of the game, so if a re-warm-up is required after an extended break in play (usually due to rain), then the re-warm-up is done using a separate set of balls, and use of the match balls is resumed only when play resumes.

On-court coaching

A recent rule change is to allow coaching on court on a limited basis during a match.[83][84][85][86] This has been introduced in women's tennis for WTA Tour events in 2009 and allows the player to request her coach once per set.[87]

Stance

Stance refers to the way a player prepares themselves in order to best be able to return a shot. Essentially, it enables them to move quickly in order to achieve a particular stroke. There are four main stances in modern tennis: open, semi-open, closed, and neutral. All four stances involve the player crouching in some manner: as well as being a more efficient striking posture, it allows them to isometrically preload their muscles in order to play the stroke more dynamically. What stance is selected is strongly influenced by shot selection. A player may quickly alter their stance depending on the circumstances and the type of shot they intend to play. Any given stance also alters dramatically based upon the actual playing of the shot with dynamic movements and shifts of body weight occurring.[88][89]

Open stance

This is the most common stance in tennis. The player's feet are placed parallel to the net. They may be pointing sideways, directly at the net or diagonally towards it. This stance allows for a high degree of torso rotation which can add significant power to the stroke. This process is sometimes likened to the coiling and uncoiling of a spring. i.e. the torso is rotated as a means of preloading the muscular system in preparation for playing the stroke: this is the coiling phase. When the stroke is played the torso rotates to face forwards again, called uncoiling, and adds significant power to the stroke. A disadvantage of this stance is that it does not always allow 'for proper weight transfer and maintenance of balance'[88] when making powerful strokes. It is commonly used for forehand strokes; double-handed backhands can also be made effectively from it.

Semi-open stance

This stance is somewhere between open and closed and is a very flexible stance. The feet are aligned diagonally towards the net. It allows for a lot of shoulder rotation and the torso can be coiled, before being uncoiled into the shot in order to increase the power of the shot. It is commonly used in modern tennis especially by 'top professional players on the forehand'.[88] Two-handed backhands can also be employed from this stance.

Closed stance

The closed stance is the least commonly used of the three main stances. One foot is placed further towards the net with the other foot further from it; there is a diagonal alignment between the feet. It allows for effective torso rotation in order to increase the power of the shot. It is usually used to play backhand shots and it is rare to see forehand shots played from it. A stroke from this stance may entail the rear foot coming completely off the floor with bodyweight being transferred entirely to the front foot.[88] [89]

Neutral stance

This is sometimes also referred to as the square stance. One foot is positioned closer to the net and ahead of the other which is behind and in line with it. Both feet are aligned at a 90 degree angle to the net. The neutral stance is often taught early because 'It allows beginners to learn about shifting weight and rotation of the body.'[89] Forehands and backhands may be made from it.[90]

Shots

Main article: Tennis shots

Competent tennis players have eight basic shots in their repertoire: the serve, forehand, backhand, volley, half-volley, overhead smash, drop shot, and lob.

Grip

Main article: Grip (Tennis)

A grip is a way of holding the racket in order to hit shots during a match. The grip affects the angle of the racket face when it hits the ball and influences the pace, spin, and placement of the shot. Players use various grips during play, including the Continental (The "Handshake Grip"), Eastern (either semi-eastern or full eastern, usually used for backhands), and Western (semi-western or full western, usually for forehand grips) grips. Most players change grips during a match depending on what shot they are hitting; for example, slice shots and serves call for a Continental grip.[91]

Serve

Main article: Serve (tennis)n.

A serve (or, more formally, a "service") in tennis is a shot to start a point. The serve is initiated by tossing the ball into the air and hitting it (usually near the apex of its trajectory) into the diagonally opposite service box without touching the net. The serve may be hit under- or overhand although underhand serving remains a rarity.[92] If the ball hits the net on the first serve and bounces over into the correct diagonal box then it is called a "let" and the server gets two more additional serves to get it in. There can also be a let if the server serves the ball and the receiver isn't prepared.[66] If the server misses his or her first serve and gets a let on the second serve, then they get one more try to get the serve in the box.

Experienced players strive to master the conventional overhand serve to maximize its power and placement. The server may employ different types of serve including flat serve, topspin serve, slice serve, and kick (American twist) serve. A reverse type of spin serve is hit in a manner that spins the ball opposite the natural spin of the server, the spin direction depending upon right- or left-handedness. If the ball is spinning counterclockwise, it will curve right from the hitter's point of view and curve left if spinning clockwise.[93]

Some servers are content to use the serve simply to initiate the point; however, advanced players often try to hit a winning shot with their serve. A winning serve that is not touched by the opponent is called an "ace".

Forehand

Main article: Forehand

For a right-handed player, the forehand is a stroke that begins on the right side of the body, continues across the body as contact is made with the ball, and ends on the left side of the body. There are various grips for executing the forehand, and their popularity has fluctuated over the years. The most important ones are the continental, the eastern, the semi-western, and the western. For a number of years, the small, frail 1920s player Bill Johnston was considered by many to have had the best forehand of all time, a stroke that he hit shoulder-high using a western grip. Few top players used the western grip after the 1920s, but in the latter part of the 20th century, as shot-making techniques and equipment changed radically, the western forehand made a strong comeback and is now used by many modern players. No matter which grip is used, most forehands are generally executed with one hand holding the racket, but there have been fine players with two-handed forehands. In the 1940s and 50s, the Ecuadorian/American player Pancho Segura used a two-handed forehand to achieve a devastating effect against larger, more powerful players. Players such as Monica Seles or France's Fabrice Santoro and Marion Bartoli are also notable players known for their two-handed forehands.[94]

Backhand

Main article: Backhand

For right-handed players, the backhand is a stroke that begins on the left side of their body, continues across their body as contact is made with the ball, and ends on the right side of their body. It can be executed with either one hand or with both and is generally considered more difficult to master than the forehand. For most of the 20th century, the backhand was performed with one hand, using either an eastern or a continental grip. The first notable players to use two hands were the 1930s Australians Vivian McGrath and John Bromwich, but they were lone exceptions. The two-handed grip gained popularity in the 1970s as Björn Borg, Chris Evert, Jimmy Connors, and later Mats Wilander and Marat Safin used it to great effect, and it is now used by a large number of the world's best players, including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.[95]

Two hands give the player more control, while one hand can generate a slice shot, applying backspin on the ball to produce a low trajectory bounce. Reach is also limited with the two-handed shot. The player long considered to have had the best backhand of all time, Don Budge, had a powerful one-handed stroke in the 1930s and 1940s that imparted topspin onto the ball. Ken Rosewall, another player noted for his one-handed backhand, used a very accurate slice backhand through the 1950s and 1960s. A small number of players, notably Monica Seles, use two hands on both the backhand and forehand sides.

Other shots

A volley is a shot returned to the opponent in mid-air before the ball bounces, generally performed near the net, and is usually made with a stiff-wristed punching motion to hit the ball into an open area of the opponent's court. The half volley is made by hitting the ball on the rise just after it has bounced, also generally in the vicinity of the net, and played with the racket close to the ground.[96] The swinging volley is hit out of the air as the player approaches the net. It is an offensive shot used to take preparation time away from the opponent, as it returns the ball into the opponent's court much faster than a standard volley.

From a poor defensive position on the baseline, the lob can be used as either an offensive or defensive weapon, hitting the ball high and deep into the opponent's court to either enable the lobber to get into better defensive position or to win the point outright by hitting it over the opponent's head. If the lob is not hit deeply enough into the other court, however, an opponent near the net may then hit an overhead smash, a hard, serve-like shot, to try to end the point.

A difficult shot in tennis is the return of an attempted lob over the backhand side of a player. When the contact point is higher than the reach of a two-handed backhand, most players will try to execute a high slice (under the ball or sideways). Fewer players attempt the backhand sky-hook or smash. Rarely, a player will go for a high topspin backhand, while themselves in the air. A successful execution of any of these alternatives requires balance and timing, with less margin of error than the lower contact point backhands, since this shot is a break in the regular pattern of play.

If their opponent is deep in their court, a player may suddenly employ an unexpected drop shot, by softly tapping the ball just over the net so that the opponent is unable to run in fast enough to retrieve it. Advanced players will often apply back spin to a drop shot, causing the ball to "skid" upon landing and bounce sideways, with less forward momentum toward their opponent, or even backwards towards the net, thus making it even more difficult to return.

Tournaments

See also: List of tennis tournaments

Tournaments are often organized by gender and number of players. Common tournament configurations include men's singles, women's singles, and doubles, where two players play on each side of the net. Tournaments may be organized for specific age groups, with upper age limits for youth and lower age limits for senior players. Example of this include the Orange Bowl and Les Petits As junior tournaments. There are also tournaments for players with disabilities, such as wheelchair tennis and deaf tennis.[97] In the four Grand Slam tournaments, the singles draws are limited to 128 players for each gender.

Most large tournaments seed players, but players may also be matched by their skill level. According to how well a person does in sanctioned play, a player is given a rating that is adjusted periodically to maintain competitive matches. For example, the United States Tennis Association administers the National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP), which rates players between 1.0 and 7.0 in 1/2 point increments. Average club players under this system would rate 3.0–4.5 while world class players would be 7.0 on this scale.

Grand Slam tournaments

The four Grand Slam tournaments are considered to be the most prestigious tennis events in the world. They are held annually and comprise, in chronological order, the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Apart from the Olympic Games, Davis Cup, Fed Cup, and Hopman Cup, they are the only tournaments regulated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).[98] The ITF's national associations, Tennis Australia (Australian Open), the Fédération Française de Tennis (French Open), the Lawn Tennis Association (Wimbledon) and the United States Tennis Association (US Open) are delegated the responsibility to organize these events.[98]

Aside from the historical significance of these events, they also carry larger prize funds than any other tour event and are worth double the number of ranking points to the champion than in the next echelon of tournaments, the ATP Masters 1000 (men) and Premier events (women).[99][100] Another distinguishing feature is the number of players in the singles draw. There are 128, more than any other professional tennis tournament. This draw is composed of 32 seeded players, other players ranked in the world's top 100, qualifiers, and players who receive invitations through wild cards. Grand Slam men's tournaments have best-of-five set matches while the women play best-of-three. Grand Slam tournaments are among the small number of events that last two weeks, the others being the Indian Wells Masters and the Miami Masters.

Currently, the Grand Slam tournaments are the only tour events that have mixed doubles contests. Grand Slam tournaments are held in conjunction with wheelchair tennis tournaments and junior tennis competitions. These tournaments also contain their own idiosyncrasies. For example, players at Wimbledon are required to wear predominantly white. Andre Agassi chose to skip Wimbledon from 1988 through 1990 citing the event's traditionalism, particularly its "predominantly white" dress code.[101] Wimbledon has its own particular methods for disseminating tickets, often leading tennis fans to follow complex procedures to obtain tickets.[102]

Overview of Grand Slam tournaments

Grand Slam

First held

Held

Location

Surface

Date

Prize money

Australian Open

1905

111 times

Melbourne

Hard

January–February

A$76,500,000 (2023)

French Open

1891*

93 times

Paris

Clay

May–June

€49,600,000 (2023)

Wimbledon

1877

136 times

London

Grass

June–July

£44,700,000 (2023)

US Open

1881

143 times

New York City

Hard

August–September

US$65,000,000 (2023)

• The French Open became an international tournament in 1925.

Men's tournament structure

ATP 1000

The ATP Masters 1000 is a group of nine tournaments that form the second-highest echelon in men's tennis. Each event is held annually, and a win at one of these events is worth 1000 ranking points. When the ATP, led by Hamilton Jordan, began running the men's tour in 1990, the directors designated the top nine tournaments, outside of the Grand Slam events, as "Super 9" events.[103] In 2000 this became the Tennis Masters Series and in 2004 the ATP Masters Series. In November at the end of the tennis year, the world's top eight players compete in the ATP Finals, a tournament with a rotating locale. It is currently held in Turin.[104]

In August 2007 the ATP announced major changes to the tour that were introduced in 2009. The Masters Series was renamed to the "ATP Masters 1000", the addition of the number 1000 referring to the number of ranking points earned by the winner of each tournament. Contrary to earlier plans, the number of tournaments was not reduced from nine to eight and the Monte-Carlo Masters remains part of the series although, unlike the other events, it does not have a mandatory player commitment. The Hamburg Masters has been downgraded to a 500-point event. The Madrid Masters moved to May and onto clay courts, and a new tournament in Shanghai took over Madrid's former indoor October slot. As of 2011 six of the nine "1000" level tournaments are combined ATP and WTA events.[105]

500 and 250 series

The third and fourth tier of men's tennis tournaments are formed by the ATP 500 series, consisting of 11 tournaments, and the ATP 250 series with 40 tournaments.[106] Like the ATP Masters 1000, these events offer various amounts of prize money and the numbers refer to the number of ranking points earned by the winner of a tournament.[99] The Dubai Tennis Championships offer the largest financial incentive to players, with total prize money of US$2,313,975 (2012).[107] These series have various draws of 28, 32, 48 and 56 for singles and 16 and 24 for doubles. It is mandatory for leading players to enter at least four 500 events, including at least one after the US Open.

Challenger Tour and Futures tournaments

The Challenger Tour for men is the lowest level of tournament administered by the ATP. It is composed of about 150 events and, as a result, features a more diverse range of countries hosting events.[108] The majority of players use the Challenger Series at the beginning of their career to work their way up the rankings. Andre Agassi, between winning Grand Slam tournaments, plummeted to World No. 141 and used Challenger Series events for match experience and to progress back up the rankings.[109] The Challenger Series offers prize funds of between US$25,000 and US$150,000.

Below the Challenger Tour are the Futures tournaments, events on the ITF Men's Circuit. These tournaments also contribute towards a player's ATP rankings points. Futures Tournaments offer prize funds of between US$10,000 and US$15,000.[110] Approximately 530 Futures Tournaments are played each year.

Women's tournament structure

In 2021, the WTA rebranded, resembling the men's tournament series, and also providing extra simplicity for fans and consumers. The numbers do not indicate ranking points, or prize money, but is a system to help define different levels of women's tennis.

WTA 1000

The WTA 1000 Tournaments (formerly the Premier Mandatory and Premier 5 Tournaments), are a series of seven tournaments that are part of the second-highest tier in women's tennis.[111][112]

500 and 250 Series

The third and fourth tier of women's tennis tournaments are formed from the WTA 500 Series (formerly Premier 700), with fifteen tournaments, and the WTA 250 Series (formerly International), consisting of thirty tournaments.[111][113]

WTA 125

The WTA 125 Series (formerly 125K Series), is the lowest tier of women's tennis, with fourteen tournaments.[113]

Players

Professional players

Professional tennis players enjoy the same relative perks as most top sports personalities: clothing, equipment and endorsements. Like players of other individual sports such as golf, they are not salaried, but must play and finish highly in tournaments to obtain prize money.

In recent years,[when?] professional tennis players have been mocked by tabloids and fans for the involuntary or deliberate noise caused by players' grunting. This controversy has spurred the Grand Slam Committee, the International Tennis Association, and the Women's Tennis Association to teach players techniques to avoid grunting.[114]

Singles and doubles professional careers

While players are gradually less competitive in singles by their late 20s and early 30s, they can still continue competitively in doubles (as instanced by Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe, who won doubles titles in their 40s).

In the Open Era, several female players such as Martina Navratilova, Margaret Court, Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams (the latter two sisters playing together) have been prolific at both singles and doubles events throughout their careers. John McEnroe is one of the very few professional male players to be top ranked in both singles and doubles at the same time,[115][116][117] and Yevgeny Kafelnikov is the most recent male player to win multiple Grand Slams in both singles and doubles during the same period of his career.

In terms of public attention and earnings (see below), singles champions have far surpassed their doubles counterparts. The Open Era, particularly the men's side, has seen many top-ranked singles players that only sparingly compete in doubles, while having "doubles specialists" who are typically being eliminated early in the singles draw but do well in the doubles portion of a tournament. Notable doubles pairings include The Woodies (Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde) and the Bryan brothers (identical twin brothers Robert Charles "Bob" Bryan and Michael Carl "Mike" Bryan). Woodbridge has disliked the term "doubles 'specialists'", saying that he and Woodforde "set a singles schedule and doubles fitted in around that", although later in Woodbridge's career he focused exclusively on doubles as his singles ranking fell too low that it was no longer financially viable to recover at that age. Woodbridge noted that while top singles players earn enough that they do not need to nor want to play doubles, he suggested that lower-ranked singles players outside the Top Ten should play doubles to earn more playing time and money.[118][119]

Olympics

The Olympics doubles tennis tournament necessitates that both members of a doubles pairing be from the same country, hence several top professional pairs such as Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares cannot compete in the Olympics. Top-ranked singles players that are usually rivals on the professional circuit, such as Boris Becker and Michael Stich, and Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka have formed a rare doubles partnership for the Olympics. Unlike professional tennis tournaments (see below) where singles players receive much more prize money than doubles players, an Olympic medal for both singles and doubles has similar prestige. The Olympics is more of a priority for doubles champions while singles champions often skip the tournament.[118][119] While the ATP has voted for Olympic results to count towards player ranking points, WTA players voted against it.[120]

For the 2000 Olympics, Lisa Raymond was passed over for Team USA in favour of Serena Williams by captain Billie Jean King, even though Raymond was the top-ranked doubles player in the world at the time, and Raymond unsuccessfully challenged the selection.[120]

Prize money

In professional tennis tournaments such as Wimbledon, the singles competition receives the most prize money and coverage, followed by doubles, and then mixed doubles usually receive the lowest monetary awards.[121] For instance in the US Open as of 2018, the men's and women's singles prize money (US$40,912,000) accounts for 80.9 percent of total player base compensation, while men's and women's doubles (US$6,140,840), men's and women's singles qualifying (US$3,008,000), and mixed doubles (US$505,000) account for 12.1 percent, 5.9 percent, and 1.0 percent, respectively. The singles winner receives US$3,800,000, while the doubles winning pair receives $700,000 and the mixed doubles winning pair receives US$155,000.[122]

Grand Slam tournament winners

See also: Lists of tennis records and statistics

The following players have won at least five singles titles at Grand Slam tournaments (active players in bold):

Men

Titles

 Novak Djokovic

24

 Rafael Nadal

22

 Roger Federer

20

 Pete Sampras

14

 Roy Emerson

12

 Rod Laver

11

 Björn Borg

 Bill Tilden

10

 Fred Perry

8

 Ken Rosewall

 Jimmy Connors

 Ivan Lendl

 Andre Agassi

 William Renshaw

7

 Richard Sears

 William Larned

 Henri Cochet

 René Lacoste

 John Newcombe

 John McEnroe

 Mats Wilander

 Laurence Doherty

6

 Anthony Wilding

 Donald Budge

 Jack Crawford

 Boris Becker

 Stefan Edberg

 Frank Sedgman

5

 Tony Trabert

 Carlos Alcaraz

Women

Titles

 Margaret Court

24

 Serena Williams

23

 Steffi Graf

22

 Helen Wills Moody

19

 Chris Evert

18

/ Martina Navratilova

 Billie Jean King

12

 Maureen Connolly Brinker

9

/ Monica Seles

/ Molla Bjurstedt Mallory

8

 Suzanne Lenglen

 Dorothea Lambert Chambers

7

 Maria Bueno

 Evonne Goolagong Cawley

 Venus Williams

 Justine Henin

 Blanche Bingley Hillyard

6

 Doris Hart

 Margaret Osborne duPont

 Nancye Wynne Bolton

 Louise Brough Clapp

 Lottie Dod

5

 Charlotte Cooper Sterry

 Daphne Akhurst Cozens

 Helen Jacobs

 Alice Marble

 Pauline Betz Addie

 Althea Gibson

 Martina Hingis

 Maria Sharapova

 Iga Świątek

Greatest male players

Further information: Tennis male players statistics and World number one male tennis player rankings

A frequent topic of discussion among tennis fans and commentators is who was the greatest male singles player of all time. By a large margin, an Associated Press poll in 1950 named Bill Tilden as the greatest player of the first half of the 20th century.[123] From 1920 to 1930, Tilden won singles titles at Wimbledon three times and the US Championships seven times. In 1938, however, Donald Budge became the first person to win all four major singles titles during the same calendar year, the Grand Slam, and won six consecutive major titles in 1937 and 1938. Tilden called Budge "the finest player 365 days a year that ever lived."[124] In his 1979 autobiography, Jack Kramer said that, based on consistent play, Budge was the greatest player ever.[125] Some observers, however, also felt that Kramer deserved consideration for the title. Kramer was among the few who dominated amateur and professional tennis during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Tony Trabert has said that of the players he saw before the start of the Open Era, Kramer was the best male champion.[126]

By the 1960s, Budge and others had added Pancho Gonzales and Lew Hoad to the list of contenders. Budge reportedly believed that Gonzales was the greatest player ever.[127] Gonzales said about Hoad, "When Lew's game was at its peak nobody could touch him. ... I think his game was the best game ever. Better than mine. He was capable of making more shots than anybody. His two volleys were great. His overhead was enormous. He had the most natural tennis mind with the most natural tennis physique."[128]

Before and during the Open Era, Rod Laver remains the only male player in history to have won the calendar year Grand Slam twice in 1962 and 1969 [129] and also the calendar year Professional Grand Slam in 1967.[130]

Jimmy Connors, Björn Borg, and John McEnroe had a fierce rivalry in the late 1970s and early 1980s that propelled "the men's game to new heights of popularity".[131] Connors had a long and prolific career and holds the Open Era men's singles records of 109 titles including eight Grand Slams, 1,557 matches played, and 1,274 match wins. Borg was regarded by his contemporaries as among the greatest ever, having a calm court demeanor and unrivalled physical conditioning, winning six French Opens and five straight Wimbledon titles, retiring at age 26 when he was still in his prime. McEnroe attained the No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, finishing his career with 77 singles and 78 doubles titles; this remains the highest men's combined total of the Open Era.[132]

The Agassi–Sampras rivalry showcased the two best players in the 1990s.[133] Sampras had a precise and powerful serve while Agassi was considered to be one of the best service returners in the history of the game.[134][135][136] By the early 2000s, Pete Sampras had won a then-record of 14 Grand Slam titles which was by far the most among his contemporaries. Sampras also held the record for most weeks at No. 1 with 286 until it was broken a decade later by Federer and Djokovic after that. Andre Agassi, was the first player to complete the Career Grand Slam on all modern three surfaces (hard, grass, and clay courts) as previous winners of Grand Slam tournaments played in an era of grass and clay only (Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall also won major Pro tournaments on the three surfaces). Agassi also is the only player to win all four Grand Slam titles along with the year-end championships and the olympics. Both Sampras and Agassi are regarded to be among the greatest players of all time.[134][137][138]

By the early twenty-first century, the 'Big Three' of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have dominated men's singles tennis for two decades,[139][140] collectively winning 66 major singles tournaments; Djokovic with an all-time record 24 titles, Nadal with 22 and Federer with 20. They have been ranked as world No. 1s in singles for a total 947 weeks (equivalent to 18 years); Djokovic for a record 428 weeks, Federer for 310, and Nadal for 209.

Greatest female players

Further information: World number 1 women tennis players and List of WTA number 1 ranked players

As with the men there are frequent discussions about who is the greatest female singles player of all time with Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams being the three players most often nominated.

In March 2012 the Tennis Channel published a combined list of the 100 greatest men and women tennis players of all time.[141] It ranked Steffi Graf as the greatest female player (in 3rd place overall), followed by Martina Navratilova (4th place) and Margaret Court (8th place). The rankings were determined by an international panel.

Sportswriter John Wertheim of Sports Illustrated stated in an article in July 2010 that Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player ever with the argument that "Head-to-head, on a neutral surface (i.e. hard courts), everyone at their best, I can't help feeling that she crushes the other legends.".[142] In a reaction to this article Yahoo sports blog Busted Racket published a list of the top-10 women's tennis players of all time placing Martina Navratilova in first spot.[143] This top-10 list was similar to the one published in June 2008 by the Bleacher Report who also ranked Martina Navratilova as the top female player of all time.[144]

Steffi Graf is considered by some to be the greatest female player. Billie Jean King said in 1999, "Steffi is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time."[145] Martina Navratilova has included Graf on her list of great players.[145] In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.[146] Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named her as the best female player of the 20th century, directly followed by Martina Navratilova.[147]

Tennis magazine selected Martina Navratilova as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005.[148][149] Tennis historian and journalist Bud Collins has called Navratilova "arguably, the greatest player of all time."[150] Billie Jean King said about Navratilova in 2006, "She's the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived."[151]

In 2018, a Tennis.com panel selected Serena Williams as the greatest female tennis player in the Open Era.[152] In May 2020, the Tennis Channel ranked Williams as the greatest female tennis player of all time.[153]

In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first.[154] In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Graf was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.[155]

Officials

Main article: Official (tennis).

In most professional play and some amateur competition, there is an officiating head judge or chair umpire (usually referred to simply as the umpire), who sits in a raised chair to one side of the court. The umpire has absolute authority to make factual determinations. The umpire may be assisted by line judges, who determine whether the ball has landed within the required part of the court and who also call foot faults. There also may be a net judge who determines whether the ball has touched the net during service. The umpire has the right to overrule a line judge or a net judge if the umpire is sure that a clear mistake has been made.[156]

In past tournaments, line judges tasked with calling the serve were sometimes assisted by electronic sensors that beeped to indicate an out-of-bounds serve; one such system was called "Cyclops".[157] Cyclops has since largely been replaced by the Hawk-Eye system.[158][159] In professional tournaments using this system, players are allowed three unsuccessful appeals per set, plus one additional appeal in the tiebreak to challenge close line calls by means of an electronic review. The US Open, Miami Masters, US Open Series, and World Team Tennis started using this challenge system in 2006 and the Australian Open and Wimbledon introduced the system in 2007.[160] In clay-court matches, such as at the French Open, a call may be questioned by reference to the mark left by the ball's impact on the court surface.

The referee, who is usually located off the court, is the final authority about tennis rules. When called to the court by a player or team captain, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision if the tennis rules were violated (question of law) but may not change the umpire's decision on a question of fact. If, however, the referee is on the court during play, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision. (This would only happen in Davis Cup or Fed Cup matches, not at the World Group level, when a chair umpire from a non-neutral country is in the chair.)[156]

Junior tennis

Main article: Junior tennis

In tennis, a junior is a player under 18 who is still legally protected by a parent or guardian. Players on the main adult tour who are under 18 must have documents signed by a parent or guardian. These players, however, are still eligible to play in junior tournaments.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) conducts a junior tour that allows juniors to establish a world ranking and an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) or Women's Tennis Association (WTA) ranking. Most juniors who enter the international circuit do so by progressing through ITF, Satellite, Future, and Challenger tournaments before entering the main circuit. The latter three circuits also have adults competing in them. Some juniors, however, such as Australian Lleyton Hewitt and Frenchman Gaël Monfils, have catapulted directly from the junior tour to the ATP tour by dominating the junior scene or by taking advantage of opportunities given to them to participate in professional tournaments.

In 2004, the ITF implemented a new rankings scheme to encourage greater participation in doubles, by combining two rankings (singles and doubles) into one combined tally.[161] Junior tournaments do not offer prize money except for the Grand Slam tournaments, which are the most prestigious junior events. Juniors may earn income from tennis by participating in the Future, Satellite, or Challenger tours. Tournaments are broken up into different tiers offering different amounts of ranking points, culminating with Grade A.

Leading juniors are allowed to participate for their nation in the Junior Fed Cup and Davis Cup competitions. To succeed in tennis often means having to begin playing at a young age. To facilitate and nurture a junior's growth in tennis, almost all tennis playing nations have developed a junior development system. Juniors develop their play through a range of tournaments on all surfaces, accommodating all different standards of play. Talented juniors may also receive sponsorships from governing bodies or private institutions.

Injuries

Main article: Tennis injuries

Muscle strain is one of the most common injuries in tennis.[162] When an isolated large-energy appears during the muscle contraction and at the same time body weight apply huge amount of pressure to the lengthened muscle, muscle strain can occur.[163] Inflammation and bleeding are triggered when muscle strain occurs, which can result in redness, pain and swelling.[163] Overuse is also common in tennis players of all levels. Muscle, cartilage, nerves, bursae, ligaments and tendons may be damaged from overuse. The repetitive use of a particular muscle without time for repair and recovery is the most common cause of injury.[163]

In popular culture

Literature

• "Tennis balles" are mentioned by William Shakespeare in his play Henry V (1599), when a basket of them is given to King Henry as a mockery of his youth and playfulness.

• David Foster Wallace, an amateur tennis player himself at Urbana High School in Illinois,[164] included tennis in many of his works of non-fiction and fiction including "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness", the autobiographical piece "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley", and Infinite Jest, which is partially set at the fictional "Enfield Tennis Academy" in Massachusetts.

• Japanese manga series The Prince of Tennis revolves around the tennis prodigy Echizen Ryoma and tennis matches between rival schools.

• Imogen, a 1978 romance novel by Jilly Cooper has a central character who is a professional tennis player.

TV and film

• The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) is a film that features Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson), a tennis pro who suffers from depression and has a breakdown on court in front of thousands of fans.[165]

• Wimbledon (2004) is a film about a discouraged pro tennis player (Paul Bettany) who meets a young woman on the women's tennis circuit (Kirsten Dunst) who helps him find his drive to go and win Wimbledon.[166]

• In The Squid and the Whale (2005), Joan (Laura Linney) has an affair with her kids' tennis coach, Ivan (William Baldwin). In a symbolic scene, Joan's ex-husband, Bernard (Jeff Daniels), loses a tennis match against Ivan in front of the kids.[167]

• Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) features a love affair between a former tennis pro, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and his best friend's fiancé, Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson). A scene of the movie includes a brief comparison between Andre Agassi and Tim Henman, with Chris Wilton calling both of them "geniuses".[168]

• Confetti (2006) is a mockumentary which sees three couples competing to win the title of "Most Original Wedding of the Year". One competing couple (Meredith MacNeill and Stephen Mangan) are a pair of hyper-competitive professional tennis players holding a tennis-themed wedding.[169]

• Challengers, a 2024 film by director Luca Guadagnino, centers around a trio of tennis players, and their relationship with one another, romantic and otherwise. It was nominated four times at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, where it won Best Original Score.[170]

Video games

• There are several tennis video games including the Mario Tennis series, the TopSpin series, the Virtua Tennis series, Sega Superstars Tennis, Grand Slam Tennis and Wii Sports.[171][172]

See also

Portals:

•  Tennis

•  Sports

•  Games

• American handball

• Outline of tennis

• Tennis games

• Tennis strategy

• Tennis technology

• Tennis statistics

• Tennis injuries

• International Tennis Integrity Agency

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Further reading

• Barrett, John. Wimbledon: The Official History of the Championships (HarperCollins, 2001) ISBN 978-0-00-711707-9

• Collins, Bud. History of Tennis – An Authoritative Encyclopedia and Record Book (New Chapter Press, 2010) ISBN 978-0-942257-70-0

• Danzig, Allison and Peter Schwed (ed.). The Fireside Book of Tennis (Simon & Schuster, 1972) ISBN 978-0-671-21128-8

• Doherty, Reginald Frank. R.F. and H.L. Doherty – On Lawn Tennis (Kessinger Publishing, 2010) ISBN 978-1-167-08589-5

• Dwight, Eleanor. Tie Breaker – Jimmy Van Alen and Tennis in the 20th century (Scala Books, 2010) ISBN 978-1-905377-40-4

• Gillmeister, Heiner. Tennis: A Cultural History (Continuum, 1998) ISBN 978-0-7185-0195-2

• Grimsley, Will. Tennis – Its History, People and Events (Prentice-Hall, 1971) ISBN 0-13-903377-7

• King, Billie Jean and Starr, Cynthia. We Have Come a Long Way (McGraw-Hill, 1998) ISBN 0-07-034625-9

• Whitman, Malcolm D. Tennis – Origins and Mysteries (Dover Publications, 2004) ISBN 0-486-43357-9

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis

Cue sports

Cue ports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports, a category of stick sports, may collectively be referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some English dialects.

There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:

• Carom billiards, played on tables without pockets, typically ten feet in length, including straight rail, balkline, one-cushion carom, three-cushion billiards, artistic billiards, and four-ball

• Pocket billiards (or pool), played on six-pocket tables of seven, eight, nine, or ten-foot length, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport[1]), nine-ball (the dominant professional game), ten-ball, straight pool (the formerly dominant pro game), one-pocket, and bank pool

• Snooker, English billiards, and Russian pyramid, played on a large, six-pocket table (dimensions just under 12 ft by 6 ft), all of which are classified separately from pool based on distinct development histories, player culture, rules, and terminology.

History

All cue sports are generally regarded to have evolved into indoor games from outdoor stick-and-ball lawn games,[2] specifically those retroactively termed ground billiards,[3] and as such to be related to the historical games jeu de mail and palle-malle, and modern trucco, croquet, and golf, and more distantly to the stickless bocce and bowls.

The word billiard may have evolved from the French word billart or billette, meaning 'stick', in reference to the mace, an implement similar to a golf putter, and which was the forerunner to the modern cue; however, the term's origin could have been from French bille, meaning 'ball'.[4] The modern term cue sports can be used to encompass the ancestral mace games, and even the modern cueless variants, such as finger billiards, for historical reasons. Cue itself came from queue, the French word for 'tail'. This refers to the early practice of using the tail or butt of the mace, instead of its club foot, to strike the ball when it lay against a rail cushion.[4]