New sports are invented from time to time and usually disappear very soon, though some succeed. Basketball was invented many years ago, and is still popular today. The biathlon (skiing and shooting) was introduced a little over 50 years ago and was also successful. On the other hand, Slamball (basketball with a trampoline in front of each basket) doesn’t seem to be doing much, if it even still exists. There are even some that are completely fictional; I read a story years ago featuring a cross of bobsledding and sports-car racing, with a dozen or so sleds lined up on a grid and all starting simultaneously.
What new sports do you think we need? Why do you think they might become popular?
I would think some type of dodgeball on a cobblestone court, with angry felons fighting for their freedom, and an alligator filled mote in the middle would be pretty cool.
SLAMBALL does still exist and I think it would be cool to have High School, College and Pro Kick Ball teams and Tetherball matches on television where the players are not elementary kids but grown men.
One of the reasons biathlon was successful was that it combined two fairly successful sports. Likewise aerial skiing, combining slalom/downhill and gymnastics.
So, take two dissimilar sports and combine them, and you come up with a new sport. Boxing works fairly well when combined with just about anything, as far as crowd appeal is concerned. Volleyball, for example. Or you could combine downhill and ski jumping: have a bunch of small jumps scattered along the race, and give people a combined score which compared how fast they make it down the hill, and how much time they spend in the air (say, subtract the air time from their downhill time; lowest score wins).
Or figure skating and boxing. No, wait, they did that one. It’s called hockey.
I find football and basketball to be very boring games. However, if you combine them with some elements of baseball, it could liven them up.
For example, let’s use bats. No more than three players on a team can have a bat in their hands, but they can swing at the ball anywhere, anytime. In football, a batted ball through the goalposts from inside the 40 counts 3 points, outside the 40 counts 6 points. For basketball, a batted ball that scores a basket is double points( 4 or 6 depending on whether they were outside the three point line).
Now we’re talking!! I’d even pay money to go watch one of those games!
I have always contested that every sport would be 120x better if the field was covered in bubbles and the players all had those foam noodles that people use at pools.
It would even make a great game on its on merits! Have two teams, 25 each or so, run at each other and beat each other with foam noodles all the while being knee deep in bubbles.
In college, a friend and I invented a sport while putting back a few beers one hot summer night.
It’s called Rock Piling. You have two teams of five guys. Each team has a pile of rocks of various shapes and sizes (ranging from 3 pounds to 300 pounds), totaling 1,000 pounds, in the “start pit.” Each team races to move their entire pile down the 50-foot “alley” to the “end pit.”
For each second it takes you, the opposing team gets one point. (So the faster you do it, the less points the other team gets.) There are four races in a full match, which means a final score might be something like 4845-4610.
The matter of uniforms became a little racy, as they ended up being a little homoerotic-- odd considering we’re both straight males: shirts v. skins, where shirts consist of white wife-beaters. Shorts are cut-off jeans, and footwear consists of tan construction boots.
I still think that Ultimate Frisbee doesn’t have the popularity it truly deserves.
And Hal, you naughty little man, get your head out of the gutter. Just because it sounds like an orgy, and would probably be fun as an orgy, and just because I could get hold of the materials and find some willing participants…
We go up for Spring branding at my in-laws ranch most years. It’s still done the old fashioned way, on horseback over three or four days. Some of us tenderfoots get involved but for the most part they bring in other ranch hands from around the area to do much of the work. Each ranch helps the next.
Now at the end of this effort is when things get a little wild. The branding itself occurs down in this wide river valley against a cliff and years back they stuck in a single, metal basketball goal next to where the cook tents and trailer sit.
When all the work’s done, these ranch hands break out the whiskey, get a little liquored and play 3 on 3 basketball… on horseback. It’s a real good way to get kil’t. They’re grabbin’ bridles, T boning other riders with their horse, pushin’ each other off, riding off with someone’s mount when they hop off to retrieve a missed shot, etc. By the end most everybody’s bleeding and pretty well banged up.
Wildest sport I’ve ever seen and a real hoot to boot.
Oh wait, I’m meant to invent my own. Ok, how about this:
Towerball:
It’s a mixture of American Football, real Football, and Dodgeball. Plus it’s all set within a multi-storey field. The object of the game is for each team to pass the ball using their arms and legs from the bottom to the top where they score by shooting in the goal. Only problem is the other teams who can intercept but who must always start from the bottom and work their way up. If the ball hits any other part of your body you are frozen from the game for some amount of time. Bonuses are that there is a whole other dimension to play with and you can have as many teams playing at once.
Yup, you can tell that I just came up with that 5 minutes ago.
