World Professional Basketball Tournament
The World Professional Basketball Tournament was a U.S. invitational tournament for professional basketball teams, which was held 1939-1948 once a year. At the tournament participated teams from various basketball leagues. Among the most popular times of the World Professional tournaments whose winners was commonly called best team in the world.
History
The World Professional Tournament was sponsored by the Chicago Herald - American local newspaper. An employee of the sports department devised the concept of the invitation tournament, which was organized by Arch Ward. In the first year the tournament was attended by twelve teams, for the most part of the National Basketball League. In this league at the time, played only teams with managers from white players. The only two teams with African-American players at the World Professional Basketball Tournament participated in 1939, were the New York Renaissance and the Harlem Globetrotters. The meetings were set up so that a final was ruled out with these two teams through the tournament. The invitation of the two nationally known teams, however, was perceived by the public as a sign of great quality of the field.
In the final, 1939, the New York Renaissance defeated the Oshkosh All-Stars and was the winner of the premiere tournament. It had to show a record number of spectators and hitherto unprecedented media coverage. In the ten years in which the tournament was played to both increased even until the merger of the NBL and the BAA for the NBA brought the end of the World Professional Basketball tournaments with it.