85 years ago in Chicago, a 24-year-old businessman named Abe Saperstein formed a small basketball team called the Savoy Big Five. He was just trying to promote a nightclub called the Savoy Ballroom, but in just a few years the team had played over 1000 games around the country and become the Harlem Globetrotters.
In 1941, just before the start of World War II, the Globetrotters signed Reece "Goose" Tatum, an all-time great who developed amazing comedy moves and changed the direction of the team. By the end of the war the Glonbetrotters had played an incredible 30,000 games (losing only 2190) and were featured on the cover of Life magazine. Those were remarkable achievements at a time when America was deeply segregated by race.
The team toured the world, breaking cultural and social barriers along with basketball records. They were the first team to play basketball in Europe. In 1950, a Globetrotter named Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton became the first African-American player to be drafted by the NBA. In 1959, when the United States and the Soviet Union were enemies at the height of the Cold War, the Globetrotters went on a sold-out tour of Russia.
Over the next 50 years, tens of thousands of people around the world turned out for each of the Globetrotters games, including presidents, kings, and popes. Their line-up has included some of the greatest players ever, including Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson, and they've been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The Globetrotters have appeared in their own movies and TV shows and have been seen by hundreds of millions of people in 120 countries. The Harlem Globetrotters are simply the most famous basketball team in the world.
