The NBL started in Florida, and while it expanded rapidly on the East Coast of the United States and for most of its early history, it had only a few tracks west of the Mississippi River. That changed in 1982 when it inherited the membership and tracks of the defunct National Bicycle Association (NBA) which had ceased sanctioning its own races and then went into partnership with the NBL. The NBL acquired all the NBA tracks in the nation including all those west of the Mississippi. As a result, it became a nation-spanning sanctioning body like the ABA.