SlamBall Founder Mason Gordon Takes Sport To The Next Level With Incredible Play

SlamBall is making a comeback!

The sport, which was founded in 2000 by Mason Gordon, is a form of basketball and is played with four trampolines in front of each net and boards around the court's edge. Although it is considered a form of basketball, it is also a contact sport like football as blocks, collisions and rough physical play is all part of the game.

Its 2023 season will kick off tonight, July 21, on ESPN and fans are ecstatic.

Gordon, who founded the sport in 2000 with a group of friends, went on to play the sport for 12 games. During his time, he was a Gunner, who is the primary scorer in the sport. In the video above, we can see Gordon when he played the sport, making an incredible shot.

The California native recently spoke out on what it means to him to have SlamBall coming back after all these years, describing the event as "living the dream".

"SlamBall is something that I started in a warehouse on a court made out of spare parts 20 years ago and we’re just a few weeks away from relaunch on ESPN," he told USA Today. "I’m still kind of pinching myself. Relaunch day is not just going to be a sporting event — it’s a cultural event."

Gordon went on to explain how SlamBall came to be, giving credit to the UFC because when he was a kid, he was really into the UFC, but he is also a team sports guy -- so how could Gordon bring all of those elements together? SlamBall.

"I was really inspired by the UFC. The UFC blew my mind as a kid," he explained. "The concept that they could take all these pugilistic styles and mix them together into something new and fresh and fun. I was a team sports guy. So I wanted to know if you could take the best elements of basketball, the best elements of football and hockey and mix them all together."

He went on to say, "But the secret sauce was that I played video games. I played NBA Jam and NFL Blitz. Those were two over-the-top sports. Bodies would go flying all around and bodies would hit each other super hard because it was a video game."

"So I wanted to know if I could create an environment that had all of those elements and that video game aesthetic. And that’s where the idea of the SlamBall court came from," he concluded.

After several years, SlamBall is making a comeback, something fans have been eager to see as at one point, the hashtag #BringBackSlamBall even began to trend.

"We’re laser-focused on this relaunch right now," Gordon said in regard to the 2023 SlamBall season, which will air on ESPN. "That’s because, a few years ago, the hashtag #BringBackSlamBall movement started completely on its own. I didn’t post anything. Jayson Tatum posted. Overtime Elite. Barstool Sports. ESPN. These were the people driving the movement."

He continued, "We’re giving the people want they want. People engaged with SlamBall back then as a real sport, which it was, and a real league, which it was not. It was a television show. And we’d get all the teams together and play the games. Three months later we’d release them. That’s no way to build a real sport."