Nerfball: Executives From Nerf and Hasbro Detail Their First Official Sport (Exclusive)

Nerf has been around for over 50 years and is known for being the home of toy footballs, basketballs and baseballs. Now, the toy brand is taking its sports vertical to the next level with the introduction of Nerfball, Nerf's first-ever official sport. PopCulture spoke with two top executives from Nerf and Hasbro (Nerf's parent company) about Nerfball, and they said the formation of the sport began with a simple question. 

"How do you play Nerf? Because there was no official sport of Nerf, even though we've been around since 1969, and we started with a single ball and were built on sport itself," Adam Kleinman, senior vice president and general manager, Nerf, Hasbro, told PopCulture. "So we started asking that question, and as a team, we decided, let's solve that, let's build the sport. So there's not like it's one person or one moment that was the, 'Hey guys, we're going to build a sport and everyone follow me with it.' It was more of a team, I think, of you hear one idea over and over enough times, you realize we better get going."

Nerfball is a combination of multiple sports, including paintball, basketball, soccer and lacrosse among others. The sport includes a ball that's a little smaller than a basketball and two hoops. Along with the Nerf Pro League ball, Nerfball has the Nerf Pro Stryfe X blaster, and players use it with Nerf Pro darts to score points and eliminate opponents. There are normally five players on each team, and a player is assigned a position – defender, midfielder and runner. Players can hit an opposing player with a dart for one point or shoot the Nerfball through the net for six points. There are four quarters in Nerfball and each quarter lasts four minutes. 

PopCulture was one of the few media members to see the introduction of Nerfball at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Nerf and Hasbro introduced the event with an exhibition game called Nerfball – Battle in the Bubble, which featured some of the top college and high school athletes in the country, including basketball star Kiyan Anthony (the son of NBA legend Carmelo Anthony and actress La La Anthony) and softball star Maya Brady (the niece of Tom Brady).

Introducing our first-ever official sport – NERFBALL. ⁣
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NERFBALL is an exciting and heart-pounding combination of paintball-style play with the speed and agility of basketball and more.⁣
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Fans can watch our first-ever NEREFBALL tournament – Battle in the Bubble, as two… pic.twitter.com/owLf25qzla

— Hasbro (@Hasbro) September 28, 2023

"We absolutely knew we wanted to work with NIL athletes," Teresa Pearson, vice president, global franchise strategy and management, Nerf, Hasbro, told PopCulture. "We have worked with them in the past. We have a lot of interest in working with young talent, specifically because they're consumers, generally, and this is obviously a great brand for them to be associated with. In the selection of who we selected, that was really done methodically around the type of sports that they played, because we wanted to make sure we were not just bringing in just people who played basketball."

"We also want this to be an inclusive sport, so we have a mix of males and females, and that is really to level the playing field. We know that there'll be certain advantages with some of these sports that athletes that are here, if it's track and field, they're super fast, but we really hope that creates strategy, that these teams are going to work together, realize their disciplines, and then be able to strategize and hopefully win that good cash prize at the end of the event."

In 2024, Nerfball can be played at Nerf Action Xperience at Garden State Plaza Mall in New Jersey and will then expand worldwide. "Teresa and I talk all the time about the future of Nerfball, and we're very fortunate that we have global reach and we've got Nerf consumers all over the world that have been with us for a really long time," Kleinman said. "So what you're going to see from us is taking great learnings from this event so that we can expand it to more players, more consumers, all around the world."

"Our end goal is to continue building this and to scale it so that you can play it globally," Pearson said. "When we talk about we're sold in 120 countries, our goal is to make sure you can play it in 120 countries. That's the main goal. Then if there is content which will come out of this, that's amazing. And then of course, any broadcast partners who want to work with us, we're total game for that. So I think it's a very viable opportunity. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a call soon."