Girls basketball, girl's basketball or girls' basketball?

Which one is it? This seems like such a stupid question, but I've seen it so many different ways in so many different publications that I'm just plain confused at this point. We use girls basketball or boys soccer but men's cross country. Men or women is already plural, so I can see that, but wouldn't it be girls' or boys' basketball?

 

I use, and i believe most do, girls basketball.

There is no ownership of said sport. Unless the basketball is just that, a ball, as in, "Biff Tannen picked up the girl's/girls' basketball and chucked it across the street."

 

Proper AP and grammar style is girls basketball. Although some papers use their own style and make it girls' basketball. The only way it would be girl's basketball is through a typo or if only one girl was playing in the game.

 

yeah, i didn't really think it was girl's basketball, I was just throwing that one in there.

 

So how do you account for men's and women's basketball?

 

Because the words "men" and "women" are already plural - as opposed to "boy" or "girl", which require the additional confusing "s" to become so.

 

Yes, but isn't men's possessive? So if you say men's basketball, don't you need to say boys' basketball?

 

One would think so. There's little logic in a stylebook, though. I'm on your side.

 

No. Type in "mens" or "womens" basketball and see how that looks ... doesn't look right, does it? That's probably because neither "mens" nor "womens" is a word that can found in the dictionary. And that's probably why you need to make "men's" and "women's" basketball possessive, but not "boys" or "girls."

Just my two cents.