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How George Steinbrenner and the Harlem Globetrotters Changed the NBA Forever
The 3-point line has become the most powerful incentive in sports. But previously unreported documents from its birth in the 1960s show how different basketball could have been.
By Ben Cohen / WALL STREET JOURNAL
Feb. 13, 2020
George Steinbrenner demanded answers. There was something he needed to know: What was the point of the 3-point line?
It was a Saturday morning in June 1961, and the future owner of the New York Yankees found himself in one of the very first arguments about the value of 3-pointers. Steinbrenner had come to this Chicago hotel for a meeting of the American Basketball League, a quixotic bet on the prospect of a few rules tweaks producing a rival to the National Basketball Association, and the owners realized the 3-point line could be a useful way of generating attention and distinguishing the ABL from the NBA.
They knew they wanted it. They just didn’t know where to put it.
The owners had previously agreed the line would be 25 feet away from the backboard and 23 feet, 9 inches from the center of the basket. Now they weren’t so sure. Some thought it should stay at 25 feet. Some believed it was better at 22 feet. Steinbrenner, the owner of the Cleveland Pipers, asked the philosophical question at the heart of their debate: Was the line a legitimate part of the game or a publicity stunt?
When it was time to vote, the ABL’s owners were split. But the motion passed by a 4-3 margin, and so it was official: The first 3-point line in professional basketball would be set at 22 feet.
Until it wasn’t.
The most likely explanation for what happened next is that Abe Saperstein, the ABL’s powerful commissioner, ignored the vote and proceeded with the 25-foot line—which is precisely where it remains today.
The previously unreported events of that day in June 1961 have been forgotten by history. They also could have changed the sport forever.
The ramifications of his decision nearly six decades ago have never been so profound. Not even a visionary like Saperstein, better known as the founder and marketing genius behind the Harlem Globetrotters, could have imagined that his innovation would one day become the most powerful incentive in sports. For the ninth consecutive NBA season, there are more 3-pointers than ever, and commissioner Adam Silver says that moving the line even a few inches would have dramatic implications for the entire game. It’s become clear that basketball is now played behind the line that Saperstein brought to life.
His theory was that a little bit of tape would change everything. He turned out to be right. He was just a half-century early.
This story is based on Saperstein’s memos, personal correspondence and minutes of ABL meetings in the archives of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas—and the deliberations of this doomed basketball league show that people have been fighting over the 3-point line for as long as the 3-point line has existed.
While long trick shots had always been a successful ploy for the Globetrotters, the concept that all shots are not created equal did not originate with Abe Saperstein. But in the early 1960s, when he was starting the ABL, the 3-pointer was still a radical notion. That made it irresistible for a showman willing to think differently about basketball.
“Basketball as it is played professionally,” Saperstein, who died in 1966, once wrote, “is in much in the need of change.”
An entirely new line on the court that made shots worth 50% more was certainly a change. But he knew he needed to do something—something that would help shorter players, something that inspired wild strategies, something that would be worth watching. As baseball was transfixed by Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle’s home-run chase, Saperstein hoped the 3-pointer would become the basketball equivalent.
The NBA had big names. The ABL would have big ideas.
“We must have a weapon,” Saperstein said, “and this is ours.”
The best part about his beloved 3-point line was that it didn’t cost any money. The only thing it required was some audacity. “You could draw the line damn near anywhere you wanted,” says Jerry Saperstein, Abe’s son.
Abe Saperstein and the longtime DePaul University coach Ray Meyer walked onto a local court one day to determine exactly where to draw it. The line had to be far enough that it was a risk but close enough that it was worth the reward. They felt that 25 feet was the right distance.
“They just arbitrarily drew lines,” Jerry Saperstein said. “There’s really no scientific basis. Just two Hall of Fame coaches getting together and saying: ‘Where would we like to see the line?’”
But then came a meeting that was more like a coup.
On that Saturday morning in June 1961, Saperstein was away on Globetrotters business. As soon as one owner suggested moving the arc to 22 feet, the others spoke freely in Saperstein’s absence.
“22 feet is possible,” an owner said. “25 feet is impossible.”
It was a highly improbable situation: Saperstein had been gone for one day, and suddenly the owners were voting to move his prized 3-point line.
There were three owners in favor. There were three owners (including Steinbrenner) against. The critical vote went to Len Corbosiero from Los Angeles.
“Yes,” he said.
The proposal was accepted. And then it was rejected.
Saperstein had the power to overrule them because he also had the Globetrotters. By promoting ABL games as doubleheaders with Globetrotters exhibitions, he could guarantee that people would come to watch a basketball league that barely existed, which gave him leverage in this room full of rich guys. “He really made the final judgment on just about everything,” said Murry R. Nelson, a Penn State University emeritus professor who wrote a book about Saperstein and the ABL.
But the most amazing part of Saperstein treating their formal amendment as a request to be ignored was that he actually got away with it. The next time the ABL owners convened, it was as if this vote had never happened. In their attempt to usurp his power, the owners proved how powerless they were.
This wouldn’t be the end of their bickering over the 3-point line. Five months later, when a team coached by Bill Sharman inquired about changing the arc on its home court from 25 feet to 24 feet, the owners had to be reminded they settled on 25 feet for a reason—even if they had just as reasonably decided on 22 feet. They reached a unanimous agreement to keep it at 25 feet. It lasted for a few more months.
“There should be discussion as to whether the 25-foot line is right or not,” read the minutes of their February 1962 meeting.
But all this discussion and discussions of discussion eventually resulted in Saperstein acknowledging there was one problem with the 25-foot arc. He solved it by adding a 22-foot line in the corners. “It made for interesting possibilities,” he wrote.
That interesting possibility is now one of the most valuable shots in basketball. Today’s offenses are built around spacing players to shoot corner 3-pointers and following the incentives that Saperstein devised. What started as something between a strategic gambit and a shameless gimmick is now something else entirely. The sport has become unimaginable without Saperstein’s imagination. His league lost. His idea won.
When the ABL went defunct in 1963, the American Basketball Association made the 3-pointer a central part of its image, creating enough competition for the NBA that the two leagues merged in 1976. The NBA adopted the 3-point line in 1979. It was moved to 22 feet in 1994, moved back three seasons later and hasn’t been moved since.
It’s still where Abe Saperstein decided it should be.
The 3-point line has become the most powerful incentive in sports. But previously unreported documents from its birth in the 1960s show how different basketball could have been.
By Ben Cohen / WALL STREET JOURNAL
Feb. 13, 2020
George Steinbrenner demanded answers. There was something he needed to know: What was the point of the 3-point line?
It was a Saturday morning in June 1961, and the future owner of the New York Yankees found himself in one of the very first arguments about the value of 3-pointers. Steinbrenner had come to this Chicago hotel for a meeting of the American Basketball League, a quixotic bet on the prospect of a few rules tweaks producing a rival to the National Basketball Association, and the owners realized the 3-point line could be a useful way of generating attention and distinguishing the ABL from the NBA.
They knew they wanted it. They just didn’t know where to put it.
The owners had previously agreed the line would be 25 feet away from the backboard and 23 feet, 9 inches from the center of the basket. Now they weren’t so sure. Some thought it should stay at 25 feet. Some believed it was better at 22 feet. Steinbrenner, the owner of the Cleveland Pipers, asked the philosophical question at the heart of their debate: Was the line a legitimate part of the game or a publicity stunt?
When it was time to vote, the ABL’s owners were split. But the motion passed by a 4-3 margin, and so it was official: The first 3-point line in professional basketball would be set at 22 feet.
Until it wasn’t.
The most likely explanation for what happened next is that Abe Saperstein, the ABL’s powerful commissioner, ignored the vote and proceeded with the 25-foot line—which is precisely where it remains today.
The previously unreported events of that day in June 1961 have been forgotten by history. They also could have changed the sport forever.
The ramifications of his decision nearly six decades ago have never been so profound. Not even a visionary like Saperstein, better known as the founder and marketing genius behind the Harlem Globetrotters, could have imagined that his innovation would one day become the most powerful incentive in sports. For the ninth consecutive NBA season, there are more 3-pointers than ever, and commissioner Adam Silver says that moving the line even a few inches would have dramatic implications for the entire game. It’s become clear that basketball is now played behind the line that Saperstein brought to life.
His theory was that a little bit of tape would change everything. He turned out to be right. He was just a half-century early.
This story is based on Saperstein’s memos, personal correspondence and minutes of ABL meetings in the archives of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas—and the deliberations of this doomed basketball league show that people have been fighting over the 3-point line for as long as the 3-point line has existed.
While long trick shots had always been a successful ploy for the Globetrotters, the concept that all shots are not created equal did not originate with Abe Saperstein. But in the early 1960s, when he was starting the ABL, the 3-pointer was still a radical notion. That made it irresistible for a showman willing to think differently about basketball.
“Basketball as it is played professionally,” Saperstein, who died in 1966, once wrote, “is in much in the need of change.”
An entirely new line on the court that made shots worth 50% more was certainly a change. But he knew he needed to do something—something that would help shorter players, something that inspired wild strategies, something that would be worth watching. As baseball was transfixed by Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle’s home-run chase, Saperstein hoped the 3-pointer would become the basketball equivalent.
The NBA had big names. The ABL would have big ideas.
“We must have a weapon,” Saperstein said, “and this is ours.”
The best part about his beloved 3-point line was that it didn’t cost any money. The only thing it required was some audacity. “You could draw the line damn near anywhere you wanted,” says Jerry Saperstein, Abe’s son.
Abe Saperstein and the longtime DePaul University coach Ray Meyer walked onto a local court one day to determine exactly where to draw it. The line had to be far enough that it was a risk but close enough that it was worth the reward. They felt that 25 feet was the right distance.
“They just arbitrarily drew lines,” Jerry Saperstein said. “There’s really no scientific basis. Just two Hall of Fame coaches getting together and saying: ‘Where would we like to see the line?’”
But then came a meeting that was more like a coup.
On that Saturday morning in June 1961, Saperstein was away on Globetrotters business. As soon as one owner suggested moving the arc to 22 feet, the others spoke freely in Saperstein’s absence.
“22 feet is possible,” an owner said. “25 feet is impossible.”
It was a highly improbable situation: Saperstein had been gone for one day, and suddenly the owners were voting to move his prized 3-point line.
There were three owners in favor. There were three owners (including Steinbrenner) against. The critical vote went to Len Corbosiero from Los Angeles.
“Yes,” he said.
The proposal was accepted. And then it was rejected.
Saperstein had the power to overrule them because he also had the Globetrotters. By promoting ABL games as doubleheaders with Globetrotters exhibitions, he could guarantee that people would come to watch a basketball league that barely existed, which gave him leverage in this room full of rich guys. “He really made the final judgment on just about everything,” said Murry R. Nelson, a Penn State University emeritus professor who wrote a book about Saperstein and the ABL.
But the most amazing part of Saperstein treating their formal amendment as a request to be ignored was that he actually got away with it. The next time the ABL owners convened, it was as if this vote had never happened. In their attempt to usurp his power, the owners proved how powerless they were.
This wouldn’t be the end of their bickering over the 3-point line. Five months later, when a team coached by Bill Sharman inquired about changing the arc on its home court from 25 feet to 24 feet, the owners had to be reminded they settled on 25 feet for a reason—even if they had just as reasonably decided on 22 feet. They reached a unanimous agreement to keep it at 25 feet. It lasted for a few more months.
“There should be discussion as to whether the 25-foot line is right or not,” read the minutes of their February 1962 meeting.
But all this discussion and discussions of discussion eventually resulted in Saperstein acknowledging there was one problem with the 25-foot arc. He solved it by adding a 22-foot line in the corners. “It made for interesting possibilities,” he wrote.
That interesting possibility is now one of the most valuable shots in basketball. Today’s offenses are built around spacing players to shoot corner 3-pointers and following the incentives that Saperstein devised. What started as something between a strategic gambit and a shameless gimmick is now something else entirely. The sport has become unimaginable without Saperstein’s imagination. His league lost. His idea won.
When the ABL went defunct in 1963, the American Basketball Association made the 3-pointer a central part of its image, creating enough competition for the NBA that the two leagues merged in 1976. The NBA adopted the 3-point line in 1979. It was moved to 22 feet in 1994, moved back three seasons later and hasn’t been moved since.
It’s still where Abe Saperstein decided it should be.
