We here at HOTSPROTSTAKES.com are all about finding weird and strange sports for you to learn about and then go, “wait why is that a thing?” Sort of like when we found arena softball, which is totally awesome.

Today we are going to introduce you to the hottest trend in sports (please note: probably not true), we are of course talking about 360Ball! Which takes all of the excitement of tennis, racquetball, spikeball (also a real thing played by frat guys everywhere) and volleyball, then puts it in a tube in one easy to watch and play funnel of excitement! Sports!

Just check out this action!

The game is pretty simple, you can play it in singles (really if you play 360Ball seriously you probably are single for life), or doubles. The basics of the game are as follows:

You start every point with a serve, which is then “set” by a player on the opposing team to their teammate, who then “spikes” the ball onto the trampoline thing in the middle there, and you repeat setting and spiking until one team is unable to return the shot and the ball hits the ground, or the team going for the spike misses the trampoline in the middle. You play to 21 and have to win by two.

There’s also walls! So it’s like arena tennis/volleyball/racquetball, and as we determined with arena softball, any sport smashed down to arena size is instantly 10x better than the boring full-sized version. It’s also nice that they made the walls clear so the 4 fans outside of the tube can watch their friends embarrass themselves in this totally real sport.

And if you don’t think this is a real sport, well buddy, they have a website and everything that contains an official 22-page rule book. Ironically, the website ends in a .net, despite the sport itself not using a net in any way. Somebody didn’t think that one all the way through.

From the website:

An allround (sic) body workout with cardio and aerobic benefits. A team sport that promises social interaction and mental stimulation, building hand-eye coordination, while burning fat and toning muscle.

Hell yeah, you may as well not even send your kids to school and just have them play 360Ball year-round to be smart AND athletic.

Amazingly, the game has been played since the 1980s according to the very brief history bubble on the site:

The game of 360ball^® was invented by the Collins brothers, Mark & John, in the Natal Midlands South Africa in the mid nineteen eighties who played a game in a circle by bouncing a ball off a tiled disc. Over the next twenty years the game developed into the fast paced sport it is today. The brothers relocated to Sedgefield and then Knysna in the early nineties and the game evolved dramatically.

Folks, if the game doesn’t evolve, much like society and endangered animals, it will die off. And 360Ball will never die.

Now, my only real question/concern about this great sport is that it requires a bunch of super-specific equipment. This isn’t a pick-up-and-play sport like football or baseball. You need racquets, turf, a bouncy thing, and a 10-foot-high plexiglass wall to surround it all, which probably keeps the poors from playing it. Great, another country club sport, don’t expect to see the neighborhood kids playing a game of 360Ball anytime soon is what I’m saying.

Now, there is a version you can play without the walls, but that’d be like playing hockey without walls, you spend the whole game chasing the damn ball around, hoping a dog doesn’t run off with it, or that it doesn’t end up bouncing into traffic.

Strangely, I can’t find anything about international tournaments, or leagues, or when it will be at the Olympics anywhere, but I figure that’s only a matter of time with as much action as this sport has.

So yeah, that’s 360Ball, a game that is apparently sweeping the nation and has more excitement than tennis, racquetball, volleyball, and spikeball combined. CATCH THE FEVER!