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,
James Naismith His mother, Margaret Young, was born in 1833 and immigrated to Lanark County, Canada in 1852 as the fourth of 11 children. His father, John Naismith, was born in 1833, left Europe when he was 18, and also settled down in Lanark County. On June 20, 1894, Naismith married Maude Evelyn Sherman (1870–1937) in Springfield, MA, USA. The couple had five children: Margaret Mason (Stanley) (1895–1976), Helen Carolyn (Dodd) (1897–1980), John Edwin (1900–1986), Maude Ann (Dawe) (1904–1972) and James Sherman (1913–1980). He was a member of the Pi Gamma Mu and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternities. Naismith was a Presbyterian minister,