Pick-up ball goes Global

This summer, one basketball-obsessed global visionary has an idea that could change the context of international basketball as we know it. On June 10, 2009, Sean Smith – a Canadian Sport Management professor at Brock University – will present Global Village Basketball 2009.

In hopes of engaging the world in a planet-wide game of pickup basketball this summer, Smith welcomes all walks of life to the grand-scale event determined to simultaneously combine the scores of individual basketball games played across the planet – resulting in one monumental aggregate result.

“The goal of Global Village Basketball is to get people to play,” said Smith, passionate about the ambitious movement. “We spend a lot of time watching sports on television and being fans, but at the same time we also forget the opportunity to play.”

For the sake of the event, anybody, regardless of age, location or ability, is encouraged to form their own game of pickup basketball on the specified date and then upload their results to a larger database.

“If you’re a 12-year-old sixth grader who scores a basket in this game, it’s the equivalent to if LeBron James scored a basket in this game,” said Smith, well aware of the social implications involved with uniting the masses through the power of sport. “If you are an old grandmother in this game, if you’re a divorced dad with three children in this game, if you’re black or white or Chinese in this game, everybody’s baskets are worth the same.”

In between playing basketball at the varsity level for two Canadian universities in the mid-1990s, Smith had his eyes opened to the rest of the world.

As per Canadian Interuniversity Sport policy, upon transferring from Queen’s in Ontario (where he spent his first three years) to Acadia out east (where he graduated), Smith was left with no option but to sit out a year before he was eligible to return to the court.

Instead of sitting anxiously for the opportunity to play again, Smith decided to travel to Australia and New Zealand.

“When you travel for the first time it opens up the world to you,” said Smith. “So I had that sort of life-changing experience.”

The decision to go abroad would be the first of many Smith would make over the course of the next 15 years. Now, having spent considerable amounts of time in Europe and Asia (including a stint to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games), Smith has become a bit of an expert in the field of globalization, especially as it relates to sport.

Currently pursuing his Ph. D in Network Sport and Community Politics at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, and teaching Sport Management at Brock, Smith aims to apply what he has learned from his experiences traveling, playing basketball and dealing with technology to better suit Global Village and, in a sense, the world.

“I’m certainly not a programmer,” said Smith when prompted to describe his experience with technology, “It was more of a social understanding of how internet technology would change life”.

One of the major factors in Smith’s technological background is the Acadia Advantage, a program created during his brief stint as a student there, recognized by the Washington Smithsonian Institution as one of the pioneers of 21st century education.

Established in 1996, the Acadia Advantage in Wolfville, Nova Scotia sought to provide all undergraduate students with laptops to enhance education and promote innovation amongst professors long before portable technology in classrooms was the status quo.

With a previous interest in media technologies, this influence would serve as one of the major reasons why Smith now wishes to combine the global sport of basketball with the power of the internet.

“[The goal] is to have a simultaneous moment in time, a day where all the people who play pickup basketball around the world are linked by the internet into one broader game.”

The format, which will pit discretionary red and blue teams against each other, will consist of as many basketball games as possible taking place over the course of the day. At the completion of the game, scores will be uploaded to a server and then combined with those of the rest of the world.

“Right now, how we handle diversity is me against you, Canada against the United States, the United States versus China, the white guys versus the black guys,” said Smith. “We can look at diversity in a different way… Maybe basketball is something we can have in common.”

With just months remaining before tip-offs worldwide, crunch time is now for Smith and Global Village Basketball to spread the word. The more people who know about the event, the more people can participate.

Relying solely on word of mouth, social technologies like Facebook, and the power of the media, reaching such a broad audience is a lofty task. Currently Smith anticipates 1,000 participants across 30-50 individual games worldwide but excitedly welcomes more.

With Facebook members in the event group from Germany, China and France already, the concept has already begun to branch out. Basketball fans across North America and the world are encouraged to join the movement, spreading word about the power of unity, the internet, and – of course – the power of sport.