Sport in China Defeats of the national team to Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea may help change the trend as Chinese become more aware of the game's internationalization. American football leagues such as the American Football League of China and the China Arena Football League have been launched in recent years. China will host the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The game was introduced to China by American YMCA workers in 1896, just five years after Canadian-American James Naismith invented basketball in 1891 while working for the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Since Yao Ming's 2002 arrival in the NBA,
The Massachusetts Game The Massachusetts Game The Massachusetts Game was a type of amateur club baseball popular in 19th century New England. It was an organized and codified version of local games called "base" or "round ball", and related to town ball and rounders. The Massachusetts Game is remembered as a rival of the New York Game of baseball, which was based on Knickerbocker Rules. In the end, however, it was the New York style of play which was adopted as the "National Game" and was the fore-runner of modern baseball. The form of the Massachusetts Game that is best known today comes