History
Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Garden, believed that major ice hockey arenas, which sat empty on many nights, could be put to profitable use hosting basketball games when there were no ice hockey games to be played. To put this theory into practice, the BAA was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946. Maurice Podoloff, who was already serving as president of the American Hockey League, was appointed president of the BAA, becoming the first person to simultaneously lead two professional leagues (Joseph Carr had been president of the American Basketball League from 1925 to 1928 while also overseeing the National Football League, although the NFL and ABL seasons did not overlap).
The owners of the BAA, while experienced businessmen, had little practice at owning basketball teams. The league started with 11 teams, which played a 60-game regular season. This was followed by the playoffs and the final series to determine the league winner. Similar to Major League Baseball, nobody expected signing or drafting black players.
Although there had been earlier, unsuccessful attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League (ABL) and the NBL, the BAA was the first league that attempted to play primarily in large arenas in major cities, such as Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden. At its inception, the quality of play in the BAA was not significantly better than in competing leagues, or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, both the 1948 and 1949 titles were won by teams that had played in other leagues during the previous year, the Baltimore Bullets in 1948 and the Minneapolis Lakers in 1949 respectively.
Read more about this topic: Basketball Association Of America
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