Examples Of The Internationalization Of American Sports

The Internationalization of American Sport
Introduction
Many popular sports in today’s society are rooted in the United States and have become internationalized through media and other forms of international play. Some of these sports include volleyball, basketball, football, and baseball. As time has gone along, American sports have started to become endorsed by other countries. Some sports, such as basketball, have especially grown in popularity around the world. Events such as the FIBA World Cup have successfully cultivated sports to not only be played in other countries, but for different countries to compete against each other. Another example of this is the Olympics, in which different countries are engaged with each other by playing
The FIBA World Cup The FIBA World Cup is a basketball tournament played between different countries. Historically, the United States has won the most medals, five gold, three silver, and four bronze; totaling up to twelve total awards within the tournament. Although they have the most total, they are not totally dominating. Teams such as Yugoslavia have also won five gold medals, which is a tie with the United States. The article by Mike DeCourcy called For FIBA World Cup to Capture US, World’s Best Must Play, describes that this type of competition has helped lead to the internationalization of sport. Although this has proved to be a successful way of internationalizing sport, it also has issues within itself that contradicts the point of the event. The first issue is that the US isn’t using their “A+” players such as LeBron James, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, or Deron Williams (DeCroucy, 2014). The team does include some superstars such as Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, and Blake Griffin. Although
Basketball has proven that one of the best ways to tie countries together is through sport. Everyone can enjoy a solid competition that they enjoy watching. The United States has benefitted from internationalizing basketball because they have gained more spectacles and players out of it. Players such as Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, and Yao Ming have proven to be some of the more elite stars to ever play in the NBA and are from outside the United States (Cohen, 2015). Although these players will never be ranked “the best in the world,” they will always be remembered as influential basketball players that made you think differently about foreign players. Bringing those foreign players into the American league brought spectacles along with it. People who were fans of these players in their own country seemed to be more interested in the NBA and American sports once they were drafted