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The new sport of Skyball was created by Christopher Poon of the USA in May 26, 2022. The aim of the game is to keep the ball in the air, but players are not allowed to hold or catch the ball.

This sport is designed to be all inclusive regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, creed, difabilities, etc. yet retain a strategic and athletic competitiveness that may potentially extend to professional heights. In short, the hope is that anyone can play it, even at the highest level, without any significant or "unfair" (dis)advantages emerging among participants.

Equipment Required: A soccer ball or something similar, perhaps in the future a specialized ball that is made for juggling/striking in the air and is easier to control.

Sport Summary

Two teams of six compete across six 15 minute periods to retain possession of a ball they must 'juggle' in the air. Juggling entails striking the ball with any part of a player's body but the caveat is that no player may catch or hold onto a ball and are allowed no more than two consecutive touches before another player must touch it. The goal of this is to promote and emphasize coordination between players, creating the ultimate team sport. The defense's goal, of course is to steal possession of the ball back from the offense and conduct their own 'juggling' with it, keeping it away from the opposing team until the end of the period. Whoever retains possession at the end of the most out of six periods wins the match. (Note: there are several variants to this also listed in the rules and description section)

Description

2 teams with six players each
15 x 15 court (in meters)
Max team size = 15

Subs on the fly, can enter from any edge of the court but must wait until a teammate leaves the court before they can enter, though they do not need to touch hands or make any contact to enact the substitution, failure to follow this rule results in non-contact infraction for entering player, subs cannot be impeded from entering game nor can live players be impeded from exiting game

Clock only stops for injuries, contact fouls, to eject a player, or deadball turnovers, play continues for non-contact fouls and penalties enacted at end of period

Sixth regular team player can be subbed for optional ghost player (who wears a special uniform) who may not touch the ball but can tag out opposing non-ghost players, tagged out players can be subbed out but may not return until start of next period, downside to using ghost player is that since touching the ball is an infraction for them, opposing team may intentionally target them with the ball to earn points/extra time, only one ghost player is allowed per team

Players receive points for infractions, more severe infractions incur more points, each point awards opposing team with one additional minute of possession time to their period score

Fouls:

1. Non-contact fouls are one point (ghost getting hit with ball, illegal sub, holding the ball, etc.)
   
2. Contact fouls are two points (any illegal contact made in an honest attempt to obtain possession of the ball: shoving, hip checks, holding, pulling, etc)
   
3. Unsportsmanlike fouls are three points (verbal, nonverbal, physical abuse, violence etc.)

Once a player commits a foul that puts them at or over three points they are automatically ejected and cannot reenter the game

At start of game, Offense begins game by orienting themselves in starting position anywhere on court, defense has one minute to react and establish their own on court position before whistle blows to start play, offense cannot move until the whistle blows and have five seconds once whistle blows to throw ball or drop kick ball to other teammates, only time offense can hold ball, other than a dead ball change of possession (five second rule applies upon pick up and whistle), defenders cannot impede motion of throw or kick (including drop) but may deflect or influence ball's direction after it has been thrown/kicked (left starting player's hands/feet)

Six 15 minute periods, alternating offense on defense

Last team with possession wins period or variant: more period possession time wins period

first to win four periods wins game

Tiebreakers/variants: most aggregate possession time across all periods or sudden death period where each team has possession of one ball and team that loses possession of their ball first loses game

Offense: Goal of game is to keep ball in the air, but players are not allowed to hold or catch the ball. However, they can use any part of their body (including hands) to strike or hit it in the air, but are only allowed a maximum of two consecutive touches (after these two touches, another teammate must touch the ball before they can touch it again)

Defense: goal of game is to get possession of ball by either having the ball hit the ground or go out of bounds (dead ball turnover) or stealing it by deflecting it to one's own teammate(s) (live ball turnover)

Both offensive and defensive players may not make contact with opposing players that prevents them from passing/receiving a pass and/or restricts their range of motion (i.e. holding them in place or pinning them to the ground), this applies to the ghost player as well that may tag out opposing players, but they cannot induce contact by tagging (or otherwise) that inhibits a player's range of motion or prevents them from directly receiving a pass, ghost players also may not tag out a player that has taken a 'control touch' and is in the process of taking another touch

Variant: court is five concentric circles, offense's goal is to invade with and keep possession into innermost circle until period ends, possession defined as at least two players on same team making contact with ball within zone (but not across zones) without opposing player contacting the ball or ball becoming dead (on the floor or out of bounds. Each zone/circle awards another 10 points (starting with zero max 40) the deeper the team goes in each period, most aggregate points across all periods win. Once ball drops for offense, the defending team becomes the offense, starting with ball in outermost circle, infractions instead of awarding time to other team, awards points instead using same severity scale, all other rules remain intact with overtime periods deciding tie breakers.

Note

This new sport has been submitted by a visitor to the Topend Sports website. The sport description is as provided. Any typos and spelling errors are probably the result of the submitter. Many of these sports has never been played, it may be just someone's idea for a future sport. Any questions or issues you have about these sports, you need to contact the sport's creator(s). I do not maintain contacts for them.

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Related Pages

• See our large list of other New Sports
• How to Submit a New Sport
• Complete list of unusual sports

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