The competing Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL), which had been at odds for three years, merged to establish the National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949. (NBA).
In an effort to overthrow the NBL's dominance after nine years, the BAA organized in 1946. The NBL only existed in tiny Midwestern communities like Fort Wayne, Sheboygan, and Akron; the BAA established itself in larger places. The upstart BAA played its games in huge major-market arenas like the Boston Garden and New York City's Madison Square Garden, while the NBL did it in modest gymnasiums.
By the 1948–1949 season, four NBL franchises—Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Rochester—moved to the BAA, bringing its greatest players with them. The BAA had started to draw some of the best players in the nation. With the Minneapolis Lakers, George Mikan, the most popular player in both leagues who could essentially guarantee a team's success, defected to the new league.
To complete the merger, representatives from the two leagues gathered on August 3, 1949, in the BAA offices located in the Empire State Building in New York. The BAA's longtime leader Maurice Podoloff was chosen to lead the new league. There were 17 clubs in the new NBA, representing both big cities and little areas across the nation.
However, as fan support declined throughout the 1950s, so did the number of clubs; by the 1954–55 season, just eight teams remained. The 24-second clock was introduced by the league that year, which sped up play and made it more entertaining to watch. The league expanded throughout the 1960s and 1970s as fans returned and the organization became financially stable.
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