There are endless amounts of real sports to enjoy, including some obscure ones (shoutout to my colleague Ted Berg for shining the spotlight on some of them on Weird Sport Wednesday in the For The Win newsletter).
But here’s a question that needs to be debated: What are the greatest fake sports from movies, TV shows and one iconic comic that should totally be real?
This is our top 10 list (come find me on Twitter to tell me what I missed) of all-time greats, from a surprisingly tough “Olympic” game to a fake game so good that people tried their best to replicate it and created a worldwide phenomenon.
10. Flonkerton (from The Office)
The best thing about this silliness from the episode “Office Olympics” is that people are actually playing it in real life. And you know what? It looks really challenging!
9. Dejarik (from Star Wars: A New Hope)
“Let the Wookie win.” It’s that holochess game played on the Millennium Falcon that seems like people can actually play.
8. Calvinball (from Calvin and Hobbes)
A game you can’t play the same way twice is a delight.
7. Pyramid (from Battlestar Gallactica)
It just looks awesome.
6. BASEketball (from BASEketball)
Combining basketball and baseball is great, but adding in legal distraction of shooters by any means necessary is what makes it higher on this list.
5. Rollerball (from Rollerball)
A full content sport with roller skating and motorcycles. That’s all.
4. Podracing (from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)
Violent, but if people and creatures didn’t die, it’d be a pretty great sport.
3. Running Man (from The Running Man)
Same as above: just take the concept without the high stakes of a life at stake and make it the sport of survival.
2. Hunger Games (from The Hunger Games series)
Not to repeat myself, but if there was a way to replicate this concept without all but one of the contestants surviving, that’d be must-watch, right?
1. Quidditch (from the Harry Potter series)
I know there’s “real” Quidditch, but as soon as we have hoverboard broom technology, this needs to be made a professional sport IMMEDIATELY.
