Sotheby's to Sell the Rules that Invented the Game of Basketball - 10 December 2010
In December 1891, a two-page typed document comprising a set of 13 rules to a new game was tacked up in a Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA gym – and “Basket Ball” was born. The game was the invention of a 30-year old physical educator teacher named James Naismith, created to entertain a restless class of students during the winter months. His “Basket Ball” was an instant success among the YMCA students, and they quickly carried the game across the country and around the world – to China by 1895, the Olympics in 1936, the formation of the NBA in 1949, the first FIBA World Championship in 1950, the arrival of the WNBA in 1997 and with more than an estimated 450 million playing today.
The two-page typescript that started it all – the founding document of Basketball - will be offered by Sotheby’s on 10 December 2010 in New York and is expected to bring more than $2 million. This remarkable survivor has descended in the Naismith family and is being offered to benefit the Naismith International Basketball Foundation, which focuses on the promotion and recognition of good sportsmanship in basketball and other sports.
