Growing up, my understanding of American sports was basically limited to the Yankees logo and shouting the obligatory ‘Kobe’ as I tossed a paper ball several feet wide of its target. Well, that and learning how to (sort of) dribble a basketball for a school performance of High School Musical when I was twelve.
Given my apparent lack of ‘mad skills,’ I didn’t really engage with professional basketball until my sister took me to a New York Knicks game five years later, and it didn’t disappoint. I was met with T-shirt cannons, slam dunks, half-time performances, the works—what more could you want? Even though the Knicks ended up losing, the foam finger pinned to my bedroom wall would tell you that it was enough to hook me.
So now, just as midterms are over, the start of the 82-game NBA season seemingly tolls the death bell for my already shaky sleep schedule. With a minimum four-hour time difference and the league’s penchant for an evening game, you’re usually looking at a 1-2 am start, midnight if you’re lucky. I’ve found, though, that because of the effort required to properly keep up with the sport, those who manage tend to be passionate. One particular friend of mine is such a fan that I bought him LeBron James’s favourite cereal for his birthday—perhaps a special case, but it does feel like following basketball in the UK is a niche found in individuals rather than a community.
Watching with friends and family, maybe even going to a match, supporting your team through thick and thin, that shared experience is sport at its best—the atmosphere just isn’t the same from across the Atlantic. Major sports in the US and Canada are, or at least have been historically, much more insular than others: the NBA and NFL dominate global basketball and American football respectively, and league winners have at times even called themselves world champions. To be fair, each league’s top teams would likely wipe the floor with anyone else, but this sort of exceptionalism just comes across as self-important, it doesn’t exactly compel fans to support their local team, does it?
It should be said that sports like basketball and American football are still growing in popularity around the world. As part of an aggressive strategy to extend the latter’s global reach, the NFL have held regular season games abroad since 2007, and to great success. The NBA has expanded its global streaming options, making basketball easier to watch, albeit with an added cost. The WNBA was also the fastest-growing brand in professional sport in 2024, broadening the sport’s global appeal when it has historically been male-dominated. Moreover, an increasing crossover with pop culture has simply made American sports trendier; it seems all you need is a Netflix documentary or an A-list celebrity sitting courtside to be all over social media.
Hopefully this growing cultural relevance will lead to the long-term growth of UK basketball as well as a wider community of NBA fans. Until then, I’ll be watching until the early hours of the morning, even if just to see the Knicks lose.
Image credits: “Boston Garden Center” by ReneS is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
