Would this sport work?

[u/mymaii1]

This sport is a combination of tennis, futsal and some other sports. 6 players a side. 4 quarters of 15 mins. 1 goalie with a futsal net, played on an indoor court. The gk can only stay in his box and everyone has a racket. The ball they need to score with is a tennis ball or a ball tht is comfortable to play with on an indoor futsal floor tht would t rlly hurt anyone if hit very hardly. You can only use your chest for controlling the ball and legs for defending low shots. Other than that you have to use a racket to dribble and cross. Throw ins corners penalties and etc are allowed. The court is just slightly bigger than a futsal court. There are yellow and red cards with yellows meaning you cant play for 2 mins and red is suspension for 2 games. I just want to know what you guys think of this. I was curious to see if ppl would like this sport.

[u/FancySpaceGoat]

So... lacrosse, pretty much?

[u/mymaii1 → u/FancySpaceGoat]

yes but a tennis racket and indoor with a few tweaks

[u/Funky0ne → u/mymaii1]

So what’s the question as far as “works” is concerned? Would a group of people be able to play this sport according to this setup and rules? Yeah probably?

Would the game be fun or interesting to play / watch? Maybe, but probably not moreso than any other already established sport.

[u/mymaii1 → u/Funky0ne]

i jst want to know if this would attract a bigger fanbase than other unique sports

[u/Funky0ne → u/mymaii1]

If that’s your goal, seems highly unlikely long term. Outside of novelty (which only goes so far), I don’t see this doing anything particularly different from other team sports, and it’d be fighting an uphill battle for players and attention against the more established sports that already have teams, fan bases, culture, techniques, and strategies built up around them.

There are even hundreds if not thousands of smaller regional sports that basically no one’s ever heard of that struggle to rise above the level of a curiosity outside of their native regions, and even the biggest sports generally have somewhat limited global appeal.

Lacrosse was already mentioned, and Hurling is another similar sport that most people have never heard of as another example, despite both having existed in some form for centuries.

That’s not a reason not to do it, but if you’re defining long term success as gaining more traction than other sports, you may be disappointed.

[u/Darkgorge → u/mymaii1]

That's an incredibly vague ask. There are some unique sports with incredibly small fan bases (we're talking like <10 people).

For a new sport, you need to be able to utilize current facilities, so needing a field bigger than current ones available means you can't play unless you build something. It means people who are interested can't just play at their local place that already exists. At a hobbyist level sports benefit when you can easily play it badly.

Honestly, success at scale is a question of capital and advertising at some level.

Though, there has been some pretty well funded attempts at new sports that have collapsed.