Spikeball (company)

Spikeball Inc. is an American sports equipment company that chiefly produces equipment for the game of roundnet. The company is the largest provider of roundnet equipment and sponsors tournaments in several countries including Belgium, Canada, and the United States.[1] The company was founded in 2007 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. Spikeball Roundnet Association tournaments began airing on ESPN2 in May 2018.[2]

Spikeball, Inc.
TypePrivate
IndustrySports equipment
Founded2007 (2007)
in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
FounderChris Ruder
ProductsNets and balls for roundnet
Websitespikeball.com

History

Spikeball was founded by Chris Ruder in Chicago, Illinois. The company was incorporated in 2007 and began selling equipment for a net sport game in 2008.[3][4] The game was invented in the 1980s by Jeff Knurek, an American toymaker who did not patent it.[5][6] Roundnet, as the game is now known, is played with a small trampoline-like net placed on the ground between two teams with two players each who bounce a ball back and forth on the net, in a gameplay that has been compared to volleyball.[2][4][7] Ruder was one of the purchasers of a set when it was originally sold briefly in the 1980s.[7] He and five of his friends raised a total of $100,000 as seed money for the company which Ruder started in his basement.[4] He purchased the rights to the product[7] and contracted a manufacture in China to produce the equipment.[3]

When he started the company, Ruder was employed at Microsoft and Monster Worldwide,[8] while working in his free time to develop the company.[9] He later worked for Live Nation in the ad sales department while continuing to build the company he founded.[10] Ruder left his career in corporate sales in 2013 to work full time on his business.[4] By then, the company was earning more than $1 million in annual revenue.[2][3] Dick's Sporting Goods contacted him to become a retailer of Spikeball equipment in early 2013, followed by Big 5 and Modell's Sporting Goods.[3] The company was granted a US patent for the game in August 2014.[11]

In 2014, Ruder appeared on ABC's Shark Tank to offer 10% of the company for sale. Daymond John offered him $500,000 but wanted 20% of the company as well as control of licensing, manufacturing and retail.[4][10] Ruder accepted, but the deal fell apart, before the episode aired, due to differences in strategy for the direction of the company.[10]

In fall 2017, the company said it had sold its one-millionth net and was generating $15 million in sales per year.[12]

Tournaments and Spikeball Roundnet Association

In the early 2010s, the game began to gain a following among college-age enthusiasts in the Chicago area and then spread across the United States.[13] Spikeball first sponsored a roundnet tournament in 2013[12] and founded the Spikeball Roundnet Association.[14] A ranking system was introduced in 2016.[3]

The game has become popular among the Mennonite community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 2013, Corey Heck attended Creation, a Christian music festival, where he played the game and brought it to his community in Lancaster. He and his brother Caleb started weekly games which turned into daily events. They also started a Facebook group and eventually a local tournament. Initially, Ruder would write thank you notes to each customer who bought a set from his company and realized the popularity of the game in Lancaster. Spikeball brought its tournament tour to Lancaster in 2015 and 2016 before moving to a larger venue in Philadelphia in 2017. The move was unpopular, and the event garnered fewer participants prompting the company to go back to Lancaster.[14]

The first College Spikeball National Championship was held at Clemson University on April 29, 2017.[15] A Spikeball tournament held in Lancaster in May 2018 became the first to air on ESPN2. Another tournament in Coney Island, New York, named SummerSpike 2018, aired on the same television network on June 30, 2018.[2][12] The Spikeball tournament tour has also included stops in Boston, Massachusetts,[2] at the Jersey Shore in New Jersey and Dewey Beach in Delaware,[14] in Savannah, Georgia,[16] in Long Beach,[7] San Diego[2] and Santa Monica in California,[17] and in Washington, D.C.[18] The first World Championship was scheduled to take place in Belgium in September 2020, before it was rescheduled for September 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]

References
  1. Piedboeuf, Guillaume (2020-01-27). "Deux joueuses de Québec iront aux Mondiaux de spikeball". Radio-Canada.ca (in French). Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  2. Darcy, Kieran (2018-07-04). "How Spikeball became mainstream". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  3. "Small-Business Success Story: Spikeball Inc". Kiplinger. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  4. Love, Katherine. "Choosing Control Over A Big Stake: What The Founder Of Spikeball Learned By Walking Away From $500K". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  5. "The best backyard games for when the weather is nice". Popular Science. 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  6. Ludwa, Nicole; Lieberman, Lauren J. (2019-01-02). "Spikeball for All: How to Universally Design Spikeball: Editor: Ferman Konukman". Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance. 90 (1): 48–51. doi:10.1080/07303084.2019.1537425. ISSN 0730-3084.
  7. Ruiz, Jason (2014-08-06). "Spikeball National Champions Take Root in Long Beach, Hope to Grow Sport • Long Beach Post Sports". Long Beach Post. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  8. "The guy who turned Spikeball into a thing". Crain's Chicago Business. 2015-06-18. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  9. Huang, Yujia (2018-11-16). "Huang: What I learned from the founder of Spikeball". The Daily Northwestern. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  10. Adams, Susan. "What Happened When Spikeball's $500,000 Shark Tank Deal Fell Apart". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  11. US patent 8807568B1, Ruder, Christofer Joseph, "Ball game", published 2014-08-19, issued 2013-03-26
  12. "Spikeball: the US sport coming to a beach or backyard near you". France 24. 2018-08-20. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  13. Ensign, Erin (September 19, 2012). "Spikeball's got game". Time Out Chicago. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  14. Cohen, Andrew Beaton and Ben (2018-08-06). "Who's Super Stoked About Spikeball? Beach Bros—and Mennonites". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  15. Correspondent, Tim Whelan Jr /Daily News. "The Beat: Natick's Mike White at the heart of college's first Spikeball national champs". Milford Daily News. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  16. News, Nathan Fordyce/For the Savannah Morning. "Forsyth Park to host Spikeball Coed National Championship". Savannah Morning News. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  17. correspondent, LIAM NOLAN Special. "The Spikeball national championships are coming to Richmond this weekend". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  18. "Hundreds flock to DC for Spikeball tournament". WTOP. 2016-10-15. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
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