Streetball

Streetball or street basketball is a variation of the sport of basketball typically played on outdoor courts, featuring significantly less formal structure and enforcement of the game's rules. As such, its format is more conducive to allowing players to publicly showcase their own individual skills. Streetball may also refer to other urban sports played on asphalt.

Some places and cities in the United States have organized streetball programs, operated similarly to midnight basketball programs. Many cities also host their own weekend-long streetball tournaments, with Hoop-It-Up and the Houston Rockets' Blacktop Battle being two of the most popular. Since the mid-2000s, streetball has seen an increase in media exposure through television shows such as ESPN's "Street basketball" and "City Slam", as well as traveling exhibitions such as the AND1 Mixtape Tour, YPA, and Ball4Real.

Rules and features

Streetball rules vary widely from court to court.

Players typically divide into teams (choose sides) by alternating choices.

Grand final

A Grand final is a game that decides a sports league's championship (or premiership) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of Australian culture. The earliest competitions to feature a Grand final were Australia's AFL (Australian rules football) and NRL (rugby league football). They influenced other competitions such as soccer's A-League, the National Basketball League, netball's ANZ Championship and European rugby league's Super League to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.

History

The Anglo-Norman term "grand" to describe a sporting event, documented in England as "grand match" in 1836, was used in Australia from the 1850s. A steeplechase in England has been called the "Grand National Steeple Chase" ("Grand National" alone for short) since at least 1839.

Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College on August 7, 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne (formerly Richmond Park). The game was advertised as the "grand football match" in the Melbourne Morning Herald and several other local newspapers.