Harlem Globetrotters Bring Centennial Tour to Bucknell's Sojka Pavilion in April

When Abe Saperstein's basketball team split $8 after their first official game on January 7, 1927, in Hinckley, Illinois, no one predicted that a century later the Harlem Globetrotters would be filling arenas across more than 200 domestic markets in a once-in-a-century centennial tour. On April 14, Lewisburg gets its turn: the Globetrotters will take the floor at Bucknell University's Sojka Pavilion at 7:00 p.m. as part of "The 100 Year Tour presented by Sprite."

The North American leg of the tour kicked off December 14, 2025, at Madison Square Garden in New York before fanning out to more than 200 domestic markets and over 125 international stops spanning the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Asia. The Bucknell date is one of the tour's regional Pennsylvania anchors, and Sojka Pavilion's 4,000-seat capacity positions the show among the larger ticketed spring events in the Susquehanna Valley.

The arena, part of the Kenneth Langone Athletics & Recreation Center on Bucknell's campus, opened January 15, 2003, with a basketball doubleheader against Lehigh and was designed by Philadelphia-based architecture firm Ewing Cole Cherry Brott. It is named after Dr. Gary A. Sojka, a former Bucknell University president. Behind the scenes, the pavilion includes a loading dock capable of accommodating team buses and production trucks, a green room for performance acts, and a catering kitchen, making it well-suited for the logistical demands of a touring production of this scale.

The centennial tour features several exclusive elements: new 100-Year commemorative jerseys, a "Golden Basketball" created by Spalding, and an enhanced pre-game "Magic Pass" fan experience. Premium ticketing options include the "Celebrity Court Pass," which gives fans center-court access during pregame warm-ups, and VIP bench seating on either the Globetrotters' or Washington Generals' bench. Sprite became the Presenting Partner for North America and Official Global Partner for the rest of the world following a sponsorship partnership announced March 18, 2026. The team is currently operated under Herschend Entertainment Studios.

The Globetrotters' 100-year arc includes chapters that define American cultural history. Saperstein, an English-born Chicagoan, built the team from a South Side Chicago exhibition squad that originally played at the Savoy Ballroom as the Savoy Big Five. He chose "Harlem" as the team's name to signal the players' Black identity and cultural roots, not their geography; the team would not play in Harlem, New York, until 1968. Saperstein was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1971.

The team's resume includes playing before 75,000 fans at Berlin's Olympic Stadium, the largest crowd in Globetrotters history. The U.S. State Department designated them "Ambassadors of Goodwill" in a 1951 letter to Saperstein. In 1959, a touring roster that included a young Wilt Chamberlain traveled to the Soviet Union, where the team met Premier Nikita Khrushchev and received the Athletic Order of Lenin. Olympic Gold Medalist Lynette Woodard later joined the franchise as the first female player on a men's professional basketball team.

Tickets for the April 14 show are available through Bucknell's ticketing portal. Fans attending should expect typical event-night traffic and parking adjustments around the Sojka Pavilion complex on campus.