Hasbro is taking its biggest step into the world of sports with the NerfBall — Battle in the Bubble launch event, of which Screen Rant was in attendance. First launched by Parker Brothers, Nerf has remained one of the most popular brands under the Hasbro umbrella across its 50-plus-year legacy, introducing everything from foam footballs to dart blasters, Super Soaker water blasters, and video games. The Nerf Sports brand has generally been focused on foam versions of popular games, though NerfBall looks to be one of their most unique efforts yet.
Screen Rant was invited by Nerf to attend their special NerfBall — Battle in the Bubble launch event in Bradenton, Florida, hosted at the sports-focused boarding school IMG Academy. While there, we were given a complete breakdown of how the new sport is played and their plans to expand it to the public. Then we watched an exhibition match between Team VELOCITY and IMPACT, which were comprised of NIL athletes.
How NerfBall Is Played
Combining the play style of a game of paintball, lacrosse and basketball, NerfBall pits two teams of five players each against each other in a field populated by inflatable barriers meant for players to take cover from their opponents. On either end of the field, which Nerf at Hasbro SVP and GM Adam Kleinman and VP of Global Franchise Strategy & Management Teresa Pearson say can be scaled from as large as an indoor soccer field to as small as park basketball court, is a basket.
Players on each team are equipped with a Nerf Pro Stryfe X, a semi-automatic dart blaster built with a motorized engine that allows the dart to be shot 150 feet per second and holds 15 darts in a removable magazine. Competitors are given four magazines of darts, which they have to carefully manage across each 4-minute quarter, as they are not permitted any further magazines until the next quarter.
The goal of the game is for players to acquire the newly crafted Nerf Pro League ball, designed loosely on the original Nerf ball and roughly the shape of a basketball, though built with ridges made for players to easily hold the ball as they make their way down the field. The ball is situated atop a pedestal situated at midfield, requiring a high jump for most players akin to the jump ball that starts off a basketball game.
Players must get the ball in the basket on the opponent’s side of the field, all while avoiding being tagged by a dart. Should the ball successfully make it into the basket, the team that scored is granted six points, though points can also be racked up with dart tags, which are worth one per player. Players must move the ball every 25 seconds on the field, and if they are tagged by a dart, they must leave the ball where they’re standing, leaving it open for either team to acquire it.
If a player is tagged, this doesn’t mean the end of their time in the game, however, as they must run to the wall behind their basket where a podium featuring an electronic sensor in which players must put the special bracelets worn on their wrists in order to respawn. This respawn also communicates to the scorekeeper that the player was tagged by a dart, thus tallying the point on the board. In addition to the five-player squad, each team is permitted two substitutes, thus allowing for quicker transitions between outs, though each team is only allowed to have five players on the field at a time.
While Kleinman and Pearson have expressed their hopes to bring NerfBall to households as much as larger venues, one of the more significant elements that make the sport special is the high-tech suit Nerf is in the midst of developing for players. The colorful suit is fitted with hit detection plates along the arms, torso, and legs, along with LED lights around the neck and wrists of players. Whenever a player is tagged by a dart, the suit will light up red, confirming to both their opponents and referees that they are out and must run back to respawn.
Nerf’s Larger Plans For NerfBall
In our interview with Kleinman and Pearson, as well as in the presentations for the sport, it’s clear that though NerfBall still has a relatively fair amount of ground to cover in its development, the company has big plans for it. In an interview with the duo after we participated in a scrimmage match of NerfBall, Pearson revealed that while they “want to prove this out before we take it even further“, she was in the process of “generating business ideas off just today,” feeling the potential for its reach is “still very much untapped.”
Even in our roundtable interviews with Team IMPACT and VELOCITY, the athletes and coaches Donald Driver and Luke Goodman were very enthusiastic about what the future could hold for NerfBall. When the idea was raised about NerfBall’s similarities to video games in its respawn mechanic, the athletes were very keen on a video game adaptation of the sport, feeling it lends itself far better to the format than other sports and comparing it to the likes of Call of Duty: Warzone and 2K’s library of sports games.
Though there’s no timetable on when NerfBall will be brought to the home market, Nerf has announced that they will be bringing the sport to the NERF Action Xperience at the Garden State Plaza mall in New Jersey at some point in 2024. Those who visit to play the game will be fitted with the hit-detection gear and Nerf Pro Stryfe X. Pearson did state the company’s plans to “pilot the first NerfBall experience” in the first FEC opening, though didn’t explicitly refer to the NERF Action Xperience as being that.
Results Of The Battle in the Bubble
After being given the presentation of the sport and playing a quarter of it ourselves, Screen Rant and the other journalists in attendance watched an exhibition match of NerfBall between Team IMPACT and VELOCITY entitled Battle in the Bubble. Team IMPACT was led by Super Bowl winner Donald Driver, high school basketball small forward Isaiah Elohim, point guard Jada Williams and shooting guard Kiyan Anthony alongside Clemson lacrosse attacker Sofia Chepenik, LSU pole-vaulter Jessica Gardner and LSU basketball point guard Trace Young.
Team VELOCITY was led by popular Nerf modder Luke Goodman, Cleveland State University basketball guard Hannah White, ASUN basketball guard Lyric Swann, South Carolina Gamecocks basketball guard Meechie Johnson, OSU lacrosse attacker Mitchell Pehlke, Auburn track and field high jumper Dontavious Hill and UCLA softball utility player Maya Brady.
Prior to the game, both teams were very confident in their chances on the field, with Driver praising the athletic abilities of his players and their taking charge on the field as being promising for their offensive chances. Goodman, on the other hand, was not only enthusiastic about his team’s athletic skills, but also felt his closer familiarity with Nerf blasters allowed him to better train his team for the match and their on-field strategies.
The Battle in the Bubble ultimately proved to be a very close competition between Team VELOCITY and IMPACT, which became even more intense when they had to swap to normal athletic wear when the hit-detection suits were no longer registering through the Wi-Fi network. Players subsequently had to go on the honor system, appropriately calling out when they were hit should the nearby referee have missed the tag.
Though Kiyan Anthony would score one goal for IMPACT, VELOCITY would ultimately come out victorious, with Hannah White being the MVP for her team as she scored two goals, with a final tag from her team on their opponents giving them a one-point victory. In regard to the network issues resulting in a suit change, Kleinman acknowledged that “you can never predict the networks“, but expressed that it was “fun to watch” the game played with the athletes both with and without the suits. He also assured that as NerfBall continues its development for a wider release, Nerf will take what they learned from the event to “perfect those pieces” and “make sure the networks can hold the amount of technology that we’re running.“
