The Newest Extreme Sports on the Block: Vertical football, Birdman Suits and Slamball
Every year people invent the next crazy extreme sport that they think will take over the world like bungee jumping or skydiving did in the past. People have always tried to push the boundaries of what is humanly possible in sports and one of the best ways to come up with a new extreme sport is to combine two sports or use an existing sport and add a crazy extreme element to it. The three newest and craziest extreme sports featured here are all on the verge of becoming the next big thing.
Football is an extremely popular sport all over the world. It did not seem possible for football to be taken to an extreme level because it is such a simple game. But it seems it can and has been taken to just that level by the masters of extreme; the Japanese. They have invented a game they call 'vertical football' or vertical soccer as it is also called.
The sports equipment manufacturers Adidas along with a Japanese company came up with the idea of hanging two people with rope off of a billboard and hanging a ball between them that they could do fancy kicks with, (Fowler, G. and Moffett, S., 2010). At the moment it is just a promotional activity but it has all the potential of becoming a full blown sport with people positioned at different angles all trying to kick the ball into a vertical goal. Just imagine a full game of football where people are swinging around on ropes trying to score goals. That would truly be a sight to see.
Another extrme change comes in the form of falling out of the sky. Yes the average person when asked, would probably say that it is not possible to get more extreme than BASE jumping or skydiving. But the world is seemably full of creative and extreme sports enthusiasts, who have started to use Wingsuits or Birdman suits to give them more air time and increase the speed of flight when doing a skydive or a BASE jump. W
ingsuits are basically suits made out of fabric that jumpers wear that give them extreme amounts of lift and increases their speed dramatically. The suits essentially enable the extreme junkie to have wings made out of cloth that allow them to cut through the air, (Jones, A., 2010). T
he jumpers still need to have a parachute in tow because the special suits do not allow them to slow down enough to land. For that they still need to have parachutes strapped to their backs that will let them land safely on the ground. People wearing Wingsuits have jumped out of planes, hot air balloons and even off cliffs and mountains. Nobody would have thought that it could get more extreme than BASE jumping but it suddenly has.
Another one of the newest and surprisingly popular extreme sports out there is called Slamball. It is basically basketball played with trampolines on the court. In front of either basket are four large trampolines that a player must run up to and then jump on in order to score a basket.
There are only four players to a side and the rules are slightly different from regular basketball. The game is televised nationally in America on the Versus and CBS channels, (Desimtaszs, 2010). This interesting sport was invented by Mason Gordon in a warehouse in Los Angles.
He cobbled together a makeshift court made out of spare parts and added trampolines to see how high he could reach and what sorts of tricks he could perform. This led to the sport of Slamball being invented. At the moment there is no governing body for the sport but because it is gaining popularity over international markets, the need for a governing official body was felt. Thus one is being put together at this moment. Other sports have emerged as well that make extensive use of trampolines, such as trampoline volleyball and trampoline football.
A time will come when people will wait for extreme sports enthusiasts to think of the next big thing, maybe even pay them for it. It seems that the market for extreme sports is just growing and growing, and in the future as a lot of new extreme sports may become mainstream, maybe even replace traditional sports in popularity.
Besides the few described here there are many more extreme fledglings in the pipeline that are just waiting to burst onto the scene and drive youngsters crazy.
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