Eight Popular Sports You Have Never Heard Of

Aug 13, 2010 by James

We all know football, soccer, baseball, basketball and even golf but what about the other sports that don’t make the top ten list here but do elsewhere? Throughout the world there are thousands of different sports and variations of that sport and every country has its national game so what are some of the most popular sports you’ve never heard of?

Let’s start with the ones that are not even worthy of this list. Not surprisingly the dumbest one in my opinion hails from America - lawn mower racing. No not the tractor pull but straight up lawn mower racing. To the men and women who race their John Deer mowers at speeds of 25 mph it is as serious as Nascar. They even created the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association; don’t believe me? Check out their site NLMRA.

Next up on the list of popular dumb sports is extreme ironing. I thought ironing couldn’t get any more intense than a crumpled up button down shirt but I was wrong. This sport even features a world championship every year and it features people ironing in the weirdest of places like on a canoe in the middle of the ocean. If you want to sign up for extreme ironing you can do so at the official website found here.

Now on to the serious stuff; the following are the most popular unknown sports,

Street Luge: If skateboarding is your thing then you might be into this. It takes place all over the world and has even had it’s spot on ESPN. The street luge essentially is a human sliding down a hill on a modified skate board at speeds of 70mph with little to no control other than leaning. To see insanity at its finest click here

Chess Boxing: Who knew chess nerds could box? Next time you start making jokes about those who play chess be sure they don’t play this version. Players of this violent Berlin-based sport bout in 2 minute rounds of boxing followed by 4 minute rounds of chess. I guess the one who is winning the fight does better in the chess portion as the other guy is seeing stars.

Man vs. Horse Marathon: It’s almost exactly as it sounds. Men and women compete in a 22 mile race against a horse to see who finishes first. Over the last nine years a human has only won twice. This sport is Welsh but as you can see in the video a lot of people participate.

Bossaball: Is a compilation of several sports into one including soccer, volleyball, gymnastics and capoeira. It is a fairly new sport that started in Belgium. The bossaball court is inflatable and has triangular trampolines on either side of a volleyball net. This sport is played with two teams consisting of three, four, or five players. The offensive team has an attacker that begins to bounce on the trampoline while the other players are on the inflatable portion of the court around it. The offensive players hit the ball back and forth to each other (a maximum of eight times) as the attacker bounces as high as he or she can on the trampoline.

Bog Snorkeling: Is the sport of swimming through a bog with just a snorkel. The official bog snorkeling course is 120m long and snorkelers must complete it in the fastest time using only their flippers. For those of you who don’t know a bog is essentially a muddy water filled trench filled with dead plant material and other crap. Video below:

Shin Kicking: This is one of my personal favorites and it is exactly as it sounds. You square off with an opponent and kick each other in the shin until one falls down in pain. The person who is left standing gains a point and whoever has the most points after 3 timed rounds wins. The morons who are brazen enough to play do get to pad their shins with hay.

Dwarf/Midget Throwing: While it was incredibly popular in bars it is now being banned throughout the world for being inhumane. There are two types of dwarf throwing one involves a dwarf in a velcro suit and you try to stick them to a wall and the other is just a throwing contest with mats. Believe it or not but dwarfs actually allowed this to be done to them.

Underwater Hockey: I finally found the only form of hockey that’s remotely interesting and the underwater fights are brutal but don’t last long enough to ruin the game. It was created in 1954 and is a non-contact sport that consists of two teams of ten however only 3 are in play from each team at a time. Players compete with foot long hockey sticks and snorkels and the rest just like ice hockey. The sport is played throughout the world and most notably in Singapore of all places.

There it is my list of the worlds most popular sports that most of us have never even heard of. I’m sure some of you are still scratching your head at a few of them. I know I’d personally rather watch some shin kicking battles over the PGA Tour or really any baseball game but that’s just me.