BRADENTON, FL — As players, media, and Nerf staff members converged on IMG Academy on Florida's gulf coast, one event loomed large on the schedule: the 'Battle in the Bubble,' Nerf's launchpad event for a new sport four years in the making.
Nerfball, a hodgepodge of dart tag, basketball, and a number of other sports, officially transitioned from concept to product as star athletes from all over the country competed in the first real game. After four four-minute quarters and somewhere in the realm of 3,360 darts, the score was settled and the inaugural Nerfball trophy — not yet engraved with a specific name — was awarded to the victorious squad.
The two opposing forces were Team IMPACT and Team VELOCITY. Each featured star college and high school athletes from all over the country, spread across various sports and demographics. The two captains were former Green Bay Packers star Donald Driver, who spent over two years developing gameplay at his sports facility, and Luke Goodman, a YouTube-famous Nerf expert who has been 'modding' blasters for nearly a decade.
Here are the rosters:
Team IMPACT
- Donald Driver (Former football player, Green Bay Packers)
- Isaiah Elohim (Basketball player, Sierra Canyon H.S.)
- Jada Williams (Basketball player, Arizona)
- Jessica Gardner (Track and field, Nebraska)
- Sofia Chepenik (Lacrosse, South Florida)
- Trace Young (Basketball, LSU)
- Kiyan Anthony (Basketball, Long Island Lutheran H.S.)
Team VELOCITY
- Luke "Out of Darts" Goodman (Nerf Expert)
- Hannah White (Basketball, Cleveland State)
- Lyric Swann (Basketball, North Florida)
- Meechie Johnson (Basketball, South Carolina)
- Mitchell Pehlke (Lacrosse, Ohio State)
- Dontavious Hill (Track and field, Auburn)
- Maya Brady (Softball, UCLA)
Both coaches took unique approaches to the match. Driver, who helped devise the rulebook, said his team had no predetermined strategy.
"Our team is just all about having fun," he told reporters. "I think as we play the game, the strategies come, that's life. We don't have a set strategy going into the game, but at the end of the day, as the game is played, we create strategy."
That was not the approach taken by Goodman's squad. Team VELOCITY came prepared — and even flaunted their readiness in pregame interviews.
"We're a pretty logical group," said Lyric Swann. "We've come up with a lot of strategies. I know [from having] small talk with the other team, they're just winging it, they don't have any plays or anything. I feel like us thinking about the game is a cerebral way will help us."
In many ways, each team was the perfect microcosm of their coach: Donald the athlete and Luke the Nerf nerd. One thinking about how to leverage his athleticism to score the ball, the other thinking about how to out-Nerf his opponent.
The result? Well, it couldn't have gone much better from a pure entertainment standpoint.
Team IMPACT and Team VELOCITY introduce Nerfball with buzzer-beating thriller
Nerfball is a simple game. You get six points for getting the ball through your opponent's hoop, and one point for hitting your opponent with a dart. Once a player has been struck by a dart, he or she must "respawn" — essentially, run back to your end zone and register your hit.
The game ended with a final score of 56-55 after four four-minute quarters of play. Donald Driver was positioned for a potential game-winning shot, but he was darted in the waning moments as the scoreboard narrowly swayed in Team VELOCITY's favor.
So, the strategic minds of VELOCITY did ultimately emerge victorious. There were four total goals scored, two for each team. Kiyan Anthony and Driver hit long-range jumpers for Team IMPACT. For Team VELOCITY, the MVP of the game was Hannah White, who score both VELOCITY goals on speedy, well-timed cuts up the middle of the field.
The final score was exciting on its own, but the process to get there was the real treat.
This being the first-ever game, it's hardly a surprise that there were hiccups along the way. Troubles with internet connectivity rendered each team's high-powered, dart-tracking uniforms ineffective. Rather than each bullet strike registering automatically, 14 of the most competitive athletes in America were forced to compete on the honor system. Get hit, raise your hand, proceed to the respawn zone.
Naturally, plenty of conflict arose from such circumstances. There were multiple refs there to enforce rules and help monitor dart hits, but it is borderline impossible to fully register every 150 FPS dart strike with 10 athletes moving at full speed. Players from both sides could be heard arguing calls (or non-calls) as both sides engaged in a fervent battle for the trophy.
Team IMPACT developed a strategy of huddling in the center barricade with the ball. The solution from Team VELOCITY? To literally jump over the barricade for a one-handed blaster strike, John Woo-style. Plays like that reinforced the sheer athleticism on display. Every player is highly accomplished in their individual sport, but more than that, each is a top-shelf athlete. Every cut, sprint, and stop was beyond the average viewer.
Rather than a simple showcase of the rules, the game devolved into a genuinely competitive free-for-all. Jada Williams, ESPN's No. 21 women's basketball prospect in the class of 2023, described herself as the leader at Arizona. She's a freshman. Her leadership showed up for Team IMPACT. She was the loudest voice in the arena, constantly barking out directions and commands — or letting the refs hear her displeasure at a blown call.
This could have been a stale and uninspiring showcase of high-level athletes uninvested in the actual outcome of the game. Nerfball isn't the primary sport for any 'Bubble' participant, nor was the match broadcast live. And yet, in part due to unforeseen tribulations and in part due to the generally competitive nature of the world's best athletes, observers were treated to a high-octane, extremely vocal contest. The level to which the participants cared was refreshing, even unexpected.
"To me, the intensity was pretty amazing," said Teresa Pearson, Vice President of Global Franchise Strategy and Management at Nerf. "They were in it to win it."
The future of Nerfball is hard to predict. The planned rollout is built on patience. Nerf wants to focus on the loyal fans of the brand while also evolving into, as Pearson puts it, "the future of active play." Nerfball is a sport with long-term professional aspirations, but perhaps more importantly, it's a game meant to be played between friends in backyards or at the neighborhood basketball court.
That's what made the 'Battle in the Bubble' such a success in the end. It was concrete proof that even the best athletes in the country, motivated for reasons beyond "active play," were fully invested in the game. It grabbed their attention and held it. It kept them involved, on the move, and competitive. That was the biggest win of the day — not so much the sport itself, but the athletes it inspired.
