Every millennial remembers staying up those late nights during the school week just to turn on SpikeTV and watch a bit of SlamBall.
For those of you who don’t remember, SlamBall was that weird — but fun — trampoline spot that somehow served as a cross between football and basketball.
It looked extremely dangerous, but let’s be honest. It’s every kid’s dream to jump off of a trampoline and dunk. SlamBall brought that dream to life in 2002 and 2003 before it shut down.
For those of you who might not be hip and wondering what in the world it is I’m talking about, here’s what that looks like.
We get some of our childhood back as SlamBall is making a comeback in July after a 20+ year absence pic.twitter.com/AqoXyw88Qg
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) March 21, 2023
Wild, right? The sport shut down after 3 full seasons spread between 2002, 2003 and 2008. Now, it’s finally coming back.
Last year, SlamBall founder Mason Gordon told TMZ Sports the sport would be returning in the summer of 2023. It’s happening this July, according to Front Office Sports, with a six-week regular season and a one-week playoff in Las Vegas.
The question is how’d we get here? Let’s go over all of the details we know.
So SlamBall launched in the early 2000's, but why'd it stop?
Again, SlamBall had 3 full seasons through the 2000s, the sport faded into the darkness becoming one of the biggest nostalgia plays for millennial sports fans.
The reason behind its disappearance seems to have been creative control. After two years of airing on SpikeTV, the sport abruptly left the network’s air and just … disappeared.
Co-founder Mike Tollin — the creator of “The Last Dance” documentary — explained why in a 2011 interview with ESPN.
‘”The ratings were great,” Gordon said. “But ultimately, they wanted to go in directions we weren’t totally comfortable with. We didn’t see SlamBall as a packaged entertainment product like the Harlem Globetrotters or professional wrestling. We saw SlamBall as a legitimate sport.”
Gordon and Tollin made the tough decision to walk away from Spike and other television deals.’
Spike seems to have thought of SlamBall as something more WWE-esque, whereas Tollin and his co-founder, Mason Gordon, thought of it as an actual sport.
The sport relaunched in 2008, but financial struggles tanked it again. And then it just went away for good.
So why is it back now?
The first reason it’s back is that people asked for it. There was a whole social media campaign behind it. If you look at tweets on the #BringBackSlamBall hashtag, you’ll see plenty of fans asking for its return.
The hashtag racked up more than 200 million views, according to Sportico.
Interesting stat: Despite @SlamBall’s absence from competitive play, more than 200 million people on social media have viewed the hashtag #BringBackSlamBall, lending support to the idea the game still holds wide appeal.
— Sportico (@Sportico) March 21, 2023
That’s hard to ignore.
What's the second reason?
The second reason — and the most important one — is money. There’s lots of money behind this.
According to Front Office Sports, SlamBall completed an $11 million Series A funding round led by IA Sports Ventures and EBerg Capital. The round also included other names like David Blitzer from Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, David Adelman who co-owns the 76ers and New Jersey Devils, Blake Griffin who plays for the Celtics and Michael Rubin who is the CEO of Fanatics.
There are lots of big sports names involved in this. The right people clearly want to see this succeed.
Will this work?
Only time will tell. However, it’s clear that the landscape is ripe for a sport like this to make its return.
We’ve seen other niche leagues pop up and sustain a bit of success. Look at The Big 3 league with Ice Cube or Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson’s work with the XFL.
There’s enough room out there for this to work and, with social media, all it takes is one clip to go viral to get people going. SlamBall can do that. It has nostalgia on its side — people want this, as we can see with the #BringBackSlamBall hashtag.
It’s also just a generally exciting sport that mixes two of the more popular sports in football and basketball together while adding trampolines. People love big dunks. People also love big hits in football. That’s typically all you’re going to see in SlamBall.
But what’s most important here is that SlamBall has gotten itself another shot to prove that it’s actually a viable sport. We’ll see if it makes the most of the opportunity.
