Have you ever watched a group of people playing football or soccer with giant balls around them, leaving only the legs exposed for play? This is called Zorb football and it was invented as a joke by two people in Norway in 2011. The founders are Henrik Elvestad and Johan Golden. Although it started out as a joke, a video went viral in April 2014 in Algund, Italy and it “set the internet on fire.” According to Goole traffic volume, there was a massive spike in the search for this sport from barely no searches to millions of searches within the period of a week. As a result, it gained in popularity and more and more people wanted to play this new interesting, fun, and exciting sport. The craze hit North America, too, but there were several problems. Since the sport was so new, it would become difficult for insurers to underwrite the sport and ensure a proper form of insurance should injuries arise. There were also no industry standards on what constituted a proper bumper ball. As a result of this, in 2014, the National Association of Bubble Soccer (NABS) was established with the goal of resolving these issues. It dealt with problems of the lack of formal game rules, quality equipment, and willing insurers to ensure that the players were adequately insured to play the sport. The NABS has accordingly re-written the book on the sport.

So, now that there is an organisation that oversees this sport, it is time to play it! And you might now be asking how would one play Zorb football? The answer to this question is very simple. Firstly, standard rules of football/soccer apply to the game. The goal is for each team to score a goal in the opposing team’s goal posts and try to score as many goals as possible with the winner being the team with the highest number of goals. The only difference is that full contact is allowed. Since the bumper ball protects the players’ hands from touching anything (as they are inside the ball), it would be very difficult to injure your upper body when playing. You might fall, but your fall will be buffered by the bubble that you are wrapped around. You might get kicked in the shins, but the space created between the players by the bigger bubble ball makes it harder for these types of injuries to occur. Moving on from playing the game to groups that are forming around it, you might be surprised to hear that there are over 35 North American cities (and this figure is growing) which now stock all the necessary equipment you need to play Zorb football. This means that whether you’re playing privately or in a league, you can rent out your equipment and enjoy the game on the pitch with friends and competitors alike. And just to make the game even more exciting, you won’t be surprised that North America has even created a championship called “The Bubble Bowl” where players compete for the Vince Lombubble Trophy in Las Vegas.

Zorb Football: Past, Present, Future – and Betting?

Unlike many other niche sport games like lacrosse, Z-Football doesn’t have a long and obscure history; it is a genuinely new thing. Zorbs first started to appear in the 90s following the basic hamster ball concept, but zorb football was first seen in 2011 – as a gag. Yes, that’s right. The popular game started as a sketch in a Norwegian show called Golden Goal. Norway may forever remain as the birth cradle of ZF, but it was in the UK and USA where the game truly kicked off after private entrepreneurs liked the idea and started producing zorb footballing gear.

Nowadays, ZF is considered a fast-growing sport, and if you live in a major city, then there are surely matches taking place somewhere near you. The USA even boasts the first official association – the National Association of Bubble Soccer. With local communities sprouting like wildfire and New Zealand getting in on the fun as well, zorb football has been getting more and more public exposure and becoming part of popular culture.

About two years ago, zorb suits were actually used in professional football training. You might have heard about the club that employed them – it was one F. C. Barcelona. You know, the club Messi plays for? There were videos showing the players taking part in a friendly ZF game, with Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez getting the gist of it pretty quickly and focusing on knocking down his team mates. Jimmy Falon, Colin Farrel and Chris Pratt have also been documented donning the zorb suits on national TV, which has greatly helped the sport becoming as popular as it is.

Even though ZF is still considered to be at an infant stage of its development, there are good portents for its future. It is extremely fun for children, but in a way that can carry on to their adult lives while adding a higher degree of competitiveness and tactical nuance. ZF feels quite different from regular football, so it shouldn’t be considered a mere variation – it stands its ground proudly. Organized games are spreading wide, which is aided by the fact that ZF is still not shackled by strictly defined rules and can easily adapt to most of the existing outdoor and indoor football pitches.

There are still some serious steps that remain to be taken. Once a common framework of rules is adopted, then we might just see the emergence of the first professional Z-football teams. Once this happens, then the game will surely be added to the growing betting portfolios of the online bookmakers. As with most sports, the initial betting will be aimed at guessing the winner of a match, with handicaps being a natural modifier that could be added.

Currently, a specific feature of ZF is the fact that it somewhat mitigates the individual skill of the players. Even Messi would be hard-pressed to make his trademark dribbles while wearing a 30-pound zorb! Running or even balancing in the thing can be a challenge, so it is very hard to protect the ball when an opponent rams you at full speed. Qualities like balance, awareness and strength have thus far proven much more valuable in Z-football, which will translate into quite different qualities of the future pro-players that we are likely to see.

The e-Sports betting boom we have seen in recent years might serve as an indication that once zorb-betting starts, it might just escalate quickly.

So, What Is Zorb Football?

Let’s start with the million-dollar question, eh?

Just what is this game called zorb football? Well, it might sound a little alien, but it has nothing to do with zerg rushes, I assure you! Though if you are trying to dribble, you might as well prepare to face one.

The more conventional name for ZF (still haven’t seen this abbreviation often, but I quite like to use it together with Z-football) is actually bubble soccer. It doesn’t pack the same punch, but gives you a more accurate representation of what you should expect. ZF is played with the same overall rules as football. You get a regular football and you have to put it in the opposing team’s net. The only difference is that you must do so while wearing an inflatable bubble similar to the eponymous zorbs.

Zorbing has been a hit for quite a while now, especially with waterwalking. About two years ago you may have heard about Reza Baluchi, who made a valiant attempt to run between Florida and the Bermudas using only a zorb – but was detained by the coast guard. Even though he was doing it for a good cause, Baluchi has become quite infamous for his use of zorbs (or a ‘hydropods’, as he dubs his creations), since he got detained as far back as 2014, when people beaching in Miami filed reports of a ‘disoriented man in a bubble asking for directions to the Bermudas’.

Zorb football is not that extreme – in fact, it is considered safer in terms of regular injuries than regular football. All the players are wearing zorbs over their upper bodies, which has the added effect of making it much harder to tackle the player of the ball. In some regards, the defensive technique is much more similar to American footie – you bump the opposition as hard as you can, hoping that they would topple and flop around like very confused turtles! Of course, the zorb doubles as a great protection, and getting knocked down is actually quite fun – in most cases. The most important rule of the game is not to bash into players that are already on the ground, especially if they have partially gotten out of their harnesses – this is the true moment when injuries can occur.

The sport is played both on indoor and outdoor pitches, and I’ve seen fun mini-matches with 3 people per side and more serious clashes with 14 players and defined roles and tactics. If you decide to forgo the ball altogether, there are other interesting variations like ‘last man standing’ or ‘zorb ring’, but I won’t be focusing on those here.

The sport was invented in Norway but has steadily been moving in the English-speaking world. I got hooked to it back in the USA a few years ago, and was delighted to find it growing even faster in the UK when I moved here – but unfortunately, there still aren’t ZF enthusiasts in my current town. And yes, your suspicion is correct, and the game is very popular with children. However, adults can have a lot of fun with it, especially when we embrace the unavoidable silliness.

Jokes aside, ZF is currently establishing itself as a fun recreational activity that can be played both for relaxation and in a more serious manner. As you can imagine, the speed and technique are much more limited than in regular football, which makes physicality and balance very important. The more I think of it, the more I go back to the earlier comparison with a cross between European and American football.

This means that a lot of people are finding something to like.

Welcome to Zorb Football: A Sports Betting Blog Turned Towards the Future!

Hello everyone, if you’re looking to learn about zorb football and other obscure sports that will become more important in the coming decades, then you are at the right place! I am Mike, and I’ve been a fan of sport betting and zorb football for several years now – long enough to want to share my passions!

Currently there are a number of innovative sports that are gaining prominence, and some of them are sure to break out and become mainstream in the coming years. Betting on them is still rather hard, as most of the leading online bookmakers don’t pay attention to leagues with less TV coverage. However, just a few years ago it would have been hard to imagine that you would be able to bet on Starcraft multiplayer matches between players from all over the world. If eSports can do it, then other games will surely be able to get their big breakthrough too.

With that in mind, I will be gearing this blog towards the future. Let’s start learning about the new generation of sports that are slowly starting the capture the hearts of people and watch them as they grow! Zorb football is my personal favourite, as I simply love playing it with the kids – even though opportunities are a little hard to come by where I live. I am always open to new things though, so I will be sharing everything I know about some other obscure sports – if you have any suggestions and personal favourites, you are more than welcome to leave a comment or three!

Good ideas are supposed to spread, so I sincerely hope that some of you might be interested in kickstarting zorb football gatherings in your local community too! The faster this sport spreads, the sooner will we see it get the public (and betting) recognition that it deserves.