{"id":106864,"date":"2026-01-05T22:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/106864\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T22:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:50:10","slug":"harlem-globetrotters-celebrate-100-years-of-ballin-in-tampa-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/106864\/","title":{"rendered":"Harlem Globetrotters celebrate 100 years of ballin’ in Tampa this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ABull Bullard sits on hoop at The Harlem Globetrotters game in Sacramento, California on January 15, 2012. Credit: Randy Miramontez \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cMarty Supreme\u201d taught the nation not to underestimate the Harlem Globetrotters. Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet won\u2019t be ping ponging in the halftime show, but the Globetrotters promise a jaw-dropping show for their 100th anniversary. <\/p>\n

Fun fact: the team name started as a fib. Jewish basketball coach and booking agent Abe Saperstein started the team in 1926 in Chicago with a handful of talented Black players to showcase their talents to wider audiences during segregation. <\/p>\n

\u201cHarlem\u201d was supposed to indicate the team was Black, and \u201cGlobetrotters\u201d was a vast exaggeration, as most games were played in tiny Midwest towns during the Great Depression. In the 1950s, the Globetrotters went on to beat the best team in the all-white NBA and be the first basketball team to sell out Madison Square Garden. <\/p>\n

After incorporating comedy and vaudeville showmanship into its act, the team has since lived up to the latter part of its name and become a global phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Tickets start at $60 for The Harlem Globetrotters 100 Year Tour, happening Sunday, Jan. 11, at the Yuengling Center in Tampa.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

This article appears in Jan. 01 \u2013 07, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSelene San Felice is managing editor of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Prior to joining CL in 2025, she started the Axios Tampa Bay newsletter and worked for her hometown paper, The Capital in Annapolis,…\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Selene San Felice\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bull Bullard sits on hoop at The Harlem Globetrotters game in Sacramento, California on January 15, 2012. Credit:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47259,135,137,136,6264],"class_list":["post-106864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-harlem-globetrotters","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-yuengling-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}