Women's basketball
Women's basketball is the team sport of basketball played by women. It was first played in 1892, one year after men's basketball, at Smith College in Massachusetts. It spread across the United States, in large parts via women's college competitions, and has since spread globally. As of 2020, basketball is one of the most popular and fastest growing sports in the world.
There are multiple professional leagues and tournaments for professional women basketball players. The main North American league is the WNBA. The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament feature top national teams from continental championships. In the US, the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship is also popular. The strongest European women's basketball clubs participate in the EuroLeague Women.
Early women's basketball
Women's basketball began in the fall of 1892 at Smith College. Senda Berenson, recently hired as a young "physical culture" director at Smith, taught basketball to her students, hoping the activity would improve their physical health. While for men, basketball was designed as an indoor addition to existing team sports such as baseball and football, basketball became the first women's team sport, followed shortly after by hockey, rowing, and volleyball. Basketball's early adherents were affiliated with YMCAs and colleges throughout the United States, and the game quickly spread throughout the country.However, Berenson was taking risks simply in teaching the game to women. Nineteenth-century Victorian culture stressed the frailty of women and prioritized the status of women in the home, and Berenson expressed concern about the women suffering from "nervous fatigue" if games were too strenuous for them. In order to keep it acceptable for women to play at all within Victorian ideals of refinement and gentility, she taught modified rules. She increased participation to nine players per team, and the court was divided into three areas. Three players were assigned to each area and could not cross the line into another area. The ball was moved from section to section by passing or dribbling, and players were limited to three dribbles and could only hold the ball for three seconds. No snatching or batting the ball away from another player was allowed. A center jump was required after each score. Variations of Berenson's rules spread across the country via YMCAs and women's colleges, where educated middle-class women were following the prevailing trend in men's games of playing intercollegiate sports.
Early basketball was played with peach baskets and soccer balls, similarly to the men's game, but women's uniforms again reflected the Victorian culture of the times and were designed to be practical, yet maintain the woman athlete's dignity and femininity. While upper-class women had been playing sports at country clubs since the mid-nineteenth century, they were able to participate in activities such as tennis and croquet in full-length skirts and corsets. However, similar attire was impractical for a more active sport like basketball, so the first trousers for women were worn. Initially loose and covered by a knee-length skirt, these early pants were replaced soon after by loose bloomers over stockings. Despite men being forbidden from watching these collegiate games, the attire still drew public ridicule.
Originally exclusively intramural, the first intercollegiate women's basketball game was played between teams from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, on April 4, 1896. Berenson herself opposed intercollegiate play for women, and prioritized the health and fitness benefits for a larger goal: she believed that women, newly entering the workforce and seeking paid jobs outside the home, were at a health-related disadvantage to men, which she saw as limiting women's opportunities and the possibility for equal wages. For much of the early 20th century, other coaches and administrators felt similarly, due in part to an increasing sentiment that men's college sports were becoming too commercialized and exploitive of the athletes. The women's branch of the National Amateur Athletic Foundation was founded in the 1920s, and the organization's goals included keeping women's sports non-competitive by discouraging travel and awards, discouraging publicity, and keeping women coaches and administrators in charge of women's sports.
From 1895 until 1970, the term "women's basketball" was also used to refer to netball, at the time a women's only sport broadly derived from basketball, which evolved in parallel with modern women's basketball. The first professional women's basketball team were the All American Red Heads. They were founded by C. M. "Ole" Olson in 1936.
Recent women's basketball
The popularity of women's basketball grew steadily around the world for decades. By the 1970s, the sport had attracted the notice of the International Olympic Committee, which added women's basketball as an official sport of the Olympic Games in 1976; the men had debuted in 1936. Throughout the 1970s, funding for women's basketball began to dramatically increase as schools receiving federal funding began to come into compliance with new laws mandating a lack of discrimination based on sex. The sport was also gaining attention at the collegiate level, under the auspices of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. America's first professional basketball league for women was founded in 1978 as the Women's Basketball League. The WBL competed for three seasons, launching in 1979 with 8 teams. The league expanded to 14 teams in 1980. Financial issues, poor marketing, and the cancelation of America's participation in the 1980 Summer Olympic Games severely impacted the league's viability, and it collapsed at the end of its third season in 1981. The next major development in women's basketball occurred in 1982 when the National Collegiate Athletic Association began to sponsor the sport. After several failed attempts at women's professional leagues in the U.S., the NBA founded the WNBA in 1996.The first nationally televised championship game occurred in 1979. Ivy Kirkpatrick of Stephen F. Austin State University coordinated the collaboration between NBC Sports and the AIAW. Only the title game was televised with Old Dominion University defeating Louisiana Tech University. Thereafter the Women's Final Four has been televised as an annual event.
The Iowa-UConn women's Final Four match in April 2024 was the most-watched basketball game in ESPN history, with an audience peak at 17 million, and is expected to feature as one of the top 50 primetime telecasts of 2024. This year's UConn-South Carolina women's championship match in April 2025 had an audience peak of 9.8 million. This was the third most-watched title game in ESPN history. The 2025 Women's NCAA tournament was the second most-viewed tournament in history, with 8.5 billion minutes watched.
In the most recent 2024 season, the WNBA consisted of 12 teams across the United States. A 13th U.S. team will start play in 2025, with two more starting play in 2026.
A new 3-on-3 league, Unrivaled, started play on January 17, 2025, giving WNBA players a U.S.-based competitive outlet during that league's offseason.
Rules and equipment
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly with five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender's hoop. The rules for women's basketball are almost identical to the rules for men's basketball. The most noticeable differences are the circumference and mass of the women's basketball, with the circumference being and the mass less than the men's basketball. The smaller ball was introduced for NCAA play in theBasketball size
The regulation FIBA ball for women's basketball is a standard size 6 ball, which is in circumference, which is smaller than the men's ball. This size is used for all senior-level women's competitions worldwide.Court dimensions
The standard court size in U.S. college and WNBA play is, while the FIBA standard court is slightly smaller at . For most of its distance, the three-point line is from the middle of the basket under both FIBA and WNBA rules. Near the sidelines, the three-point line runs parallel to the.sideline, at a distance of exactly a yard in the WNBA and 0.9 m in FIBA play. Under NCAA rules, the three-point distance is for most of the width of the court, with a minimum distance of from the sidelines. The WNBA, FIBA, and NCAA all use a block/charge arc near each basket, with the NCAA using an arc identical to the radius of the basket, the WNBA setting it at from the center of the basket and FIBA using a marginally wider radius of exactly.Shot clock
The WNBA shot clock was changed from 30 to 24 seconds, which has been in FIBA play since 2000, and has been used by the NBA since the shot clock was first introduced in 1954. Both men's and women's NCAA college basketball use a 30-second shot clock; the men's clock was introduced in 1985 at 45 seconds, lowered to 35 seconds in 1993, and 30 seconds in 2015.Game clock
Most high school games are played with four 8-minute quarters, while NCAA, WNBA, and FIBA games are played in four 10 minute quarters. In 2015–2016 the NCAA changed the rules to 10 minute quarters from 20 minute halves. High lobs or tip-ins can be attempted with up to 0.3 seconds left in the period per the Trent Tucker Rule.A WNBA rule removed the jump ball at the start of the second half.