The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition

Exhibition game

An exhibition game is a sporting event in which there is no competitive value of any significant kind to any competitor regardless of the outcome of the competition...

 basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings

Shamrock Holdings

Shamrock Holdings is the firm founded as the Roy E. Disney family investment firm and the Disney family remains a key investor. Roy was its chairman, and Stanley Gold its President/CEO. Shamrock owns a number of assets including hotels and radio and television stations. Shamrock often takes an...

, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney

Roy E. Disney

Roy Edward Disney, KCSG was a longtime senior executive for The Walt Disney Company, which his father Roy Oliver Disney and his uncle Walt Disney founded. At the time of his death he was a shareholder , and served as a consultant for the company and Director Emeritus for the Board of Directors...

 family.

Over the years they have played more than 20,000 exhibition games in 118 countries. Brother Bones

Brother Bones

Brother Bones was an American whistling and bone playing recording artist from Montgomery, Alabama. Born Freeman Davis, his late 1940s recording of the 1925 standard "Sweet Georgia Brown," became internationally famous after being adopted as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball...

's whistled

Whistling

Human whistling is the production of sound by means of carefully controlling a stream of air flowing through a small hole. Whistling can be achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips and then blowing or sucking air through the hole...

 version of "Sweet Georgia Brown

Sweet Georgia Brown

"Sweet Georgia Brown" is a jazz standard and pop tune written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey .The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925 by bandleader Ben Bernie, resulting in a five-week No. 1 for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra...

" is the team's signature song. "Globie" has been their mascot since 1993.
There is no clear consensus as to the very beginnings of the Globetrotters.