The world's oldest basketball court has iron poles in the middle of it Posted Mar 1, 2015 Basketball is famously an all-American sport (invented by a Canadian). But thanks to an odd twist of fate and the YMCA, the world's oldest surviving basketball court is actually in France. Tucked away in a neighborhood of Paris, the handsome facility has parquet floors and iron pillars running down the middle of it. It looks dangerous as hell. (Gizmodo)