Basketball in England

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Basketball has a very long history in England, being introduced there by YMCA almost immediately after it was invented^[1] (having been created by the Canadian Dr. James Naismith in 1891 in Massachusetts). World Wars I and II further spurred its popularity.

The four highest profile team sports in the United Kingdom are football, cricket, rugby union and rugby league. Basketball belongs to the next tier alongside ice hockey and netball; like these sports, it has a significant and dedicated following, a professional league, but attracts little coverage from the major British media outlets and suffers from lack of "crossover" appeal.^[2] While England is the birthplace of the four main sports, and England teams are relatively major powers in each of them, Basketball, like ice hockey, is essentially an "import" from North America, and English and British teams have not generally been successful in them internationally, which also affects their profile.

The elite tier is the fully professional Super League Basketball, featuring teams from England and Scotland, while the semi-professional National Basketball League Division 1 effectively forms the second-tier. There is no promotion and relegation between the two leagues because the Super League operates a franchise system whereby teams have to "buy into" the league.^[3]