Zorb football

Zorb Football

Zorb football (bubbleball or bubble soccer^[1]) - is the recreation or sport of playing football whilst encased in an inflated zorb which covers the player’s upper-body and head. The game is usually played indoors in a sports hall, or outdoors on grass or AstroTurf. The sport is becoming increasingly popular, with many people all over the world taking it up. Zorb football can be played by anyone over the age of 10 and is often played amongst friends, for corporate team building days, stag parties, bachelor parties, and birthdays. There are also many variations of zorb football,^[2] with scenarios such as bubble bowling or bubble sumo also taking place at zorb football venues. Some venues let you rent it and they come to you and set up a game at your House.^[3]

History

A zorb football match at Texas A&M University–Commerce in December 2014

Zorb football was first created in Norway by Henrik Elvestad and Johan Golden,^[4] when it made an appearance on their TV show, Golden Goal.^[5] The game took a while to reach the UK though, and when British entrepreneur Lee Moseley originally tried getting zorb football going in the UK, he was turned down by investors who said the activity had no future. He was not put off however and financed the idea himself, which turned out to be a good idea as the activity is now played nationwide.^[6] By 2014 had made its way to the United States^[7] where several bubble suit^[8] companies such as Bouncer Ball,^[9]BubbleBall Inc,^[10] Knockerball,^[11] and the National Association of Bubble Soccer,^[12] among others. The game has even made it as far as New Zealand known as Zoccer^[13]

Tipping Point

On November 20th, 2015, zorb football was launched into the main stream media within the United States as bubble soccer when it appeared on ABC's Shark Tank. John Anthony Radosta, entrepreneur & league commissioner of the National Association of Bubble Soccer (based in the United States) appeared on the show exposing the sports to millions of network viewers in an attempt to secure a deal with Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec, and Kevin O'Leary. While ultimately unsuccessful is his pitch, the exposure launched bubble soccer to new heights within the United States, making hundreds of subsequent press coverage from publications such as Entrepreneur Magazine and Boston.com.

Different scenarios

When playing zorb football there are a number of different scenarios which can be played out:

• Zorb bowling is when a group of people stand at one end of the pitch whilst another player stands at the other end. It is then his job to run and dive at the group, trying to knock as many of them over as possible.
• Zorb sumo is when two players line up in a circle drawn on the ground, with the object of the game being to push each other out from the circle.
• Bulldog is when one player is given the task of knocking down as many players as he can while inside the bubble,^[14] stopping them from getting from one end of the pitch to the other. Whoever gets knocked down then has to join the guy in the middle.^[15]

See also

• Zorbing
• Five-a-side football
• Bubbleball

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zorb football.

• "Zorbs give football a funky facelift". BBC News. 4 December 2010. Retrieved 31 July 2015. 
• soccerwars.ie -(Irish bubble football specialists)
• Partykrakow.co.uk
• Londonist.com
• Nydailynews.com
• Bubble-soccer.us
• http://www.zorbplanet.de/spiele