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The Harlem Globetrotters are a basketball team that combines athleticism and comedy to create one of the best-known sports entertainment franchises in the world. Created by Abe Saperstein in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, the team adopted the name Harlem because of its connotations as a leading African-American community. Over the years it has toured over 118 countries, playing more than 20,000 exhibition games, mostly against deliberately ineffective opposition like the Washington Generals (1953–1995) and the New York Nationals (1995–present). The Globetrotters are well-known throughout the basketball world. The organization started in the Negro American Legion League as the "Giles Post", and around 1926 turned professional. Shortly after, Saperstein became the manager and coach of the team, taking over for Dick Hudson. This was possibly because the all-black team needed a white man to book games in the midwest. On January 3, 1928, the Giles team began play at the newly constructed Savoy Ballroom on Chicago's South Side. They took a new name, the Savoy Big Five. In the spring of 1928, after a dispute over money, Saperstein and some of the players left the Savoy and went back to barnstorming, renaming the team the Harlem Globetrotters, picking Harlem as their home city since Harlem was considered the center of African-American culture at the time, and an out of town team name would give the team more of a mystique.[1] After four decades of existence, the Globetrotters played their first "home" game in Harlem in 1968. The Globetrotters were initially a serious competitive team, despite their flair for entertainment. Initially, they would only clown for the audience after establishing a safe lead in the game. In 1940, they accepted an invitation to participate in the World Professional Basketball Tournament. Defeating the New York Rens in the semi-finals, they advanced to the championship game, where they beat the Chicago Bruins in overtime by a score of 31-29. The Globetrotters beat the premier professional team, George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers, for two games in a row in 1948 and 1949, with the Lakers winning the third contest. The February 1948 win (by a score of 61-59, on a buzzer beater) was a hallmark in professional basketball history, as the all-black Globetrotters proved they were on an equal footing with the all-white Lakers. Momentum for ending the NBA's color line grew, and in 1950, Chuck Cooper became the first black player drafted by an NBA team. From that time on the Globetrotters had increasing difficulty attracting and retaining top talent.