Awesome Sports

Ben Affleck directed and stars in this drama about athletic wear giant Nike as it struck its game-changing partnership with Michael Jordan. Affleck portrays Nike boss Phil Knight, while Matt Damon plays the man who took a gamble on a rookie NBA player to help spawn the company’s new basketball division. In theaters 4.5.23.

Vintage pictures of boxers often show fighters standing in this silly “fisticuffs” stance. But that position served a purpose, as Primo – Boxing explains in this short video. Basically, the lower arm protected the torso since gloveless fighters took way more body blows and aimed for the head less frequently to prevent broken hands.

Basketball shoes are meant for playing basketball. But Marko took the concept literally and crafted custom sneakers out of a Wilson basketball. The leather and rubber from the ball look like they were difficult to work with, but the finished shoes look like they were worth the effort. That flame paint job is sweet!

LEGO has revealed a brick-built tabletop foosball table. Inspired by a fan-submitted design, the 2339-piece set is fully-playable. It comes with 22 Minifigures – 10 on the field and 12 cheering them on from the grandstand. 44 unique heads and wigs let you create players from many races and ethnicities. One figure even has vitiligo.

If you’ve ever seen a grade school dance routine, you know how hard it is to get kids to move in sync. But these little girls have been taught not only how to dribble two basketballs without losing them, but to do it in perfect time with their classmates while performing a choreographed routine.

Instead of taking a bath on MLB ticket$$$, fans in Atlanta can take a Presidential Suite bubble bath while watching a live Braves game. Special suites, guestrooms, and the rooftop pool at the Omni Hotel at The Battery Atlanta have awesome ballfield views. Book during home games to score overnight home runs.

A couple of years back, Stuff Made Here created a basketball hoop that was always in the right place to catch the ball. Now he’s back with an upgraded, cable-driven robot with six degrees of freedom so it can catch balls thrown long or short or off-axis. Like all good engineering projects, it required lots of failures along the way.

Originating from Southeast Asia, Sepak Takraw is a unique variant of volleyball where players use their feet instead of hands and head to send a small ball over the net. This brief slow-motion footage shows just how flexible, acrobatic, and agile its players must be.

(PG-13: Language) “The only thing that makes every Olympian the same… is that we all want to win a f**king gold medal.” Filmmaker Jeff Alper followed fencer Race Imbolden before and after winning his medal at the 2021 Olympic Games, offering a glimpse into how an athlete’s mindset shifts after the adrenaline wears off.

Boston’s Bridge and Harbor handcrafts accessories from leather and wool. Among their wares are these motel-style key fobs sewn from leather reclaimed from vintage footballs, baseball gloves, boxing speed bags, and hockey goalie gloves. They also make unique wallets from the same kinds of materials.

If March Madness betting means you’re reaching to fill (or empty) your wallet, this full-grain model from ProStyle Sports will do the trick. It’s made from Horween basketball leather, so it looks, feels, and even smells like a pro ball. Inside are eight credit-card slots – nearly enough for season tickets, parking, and $20 beers.

Olympic champion snowboarder Pierre Vaultier takes us on a thrilling ride down a skinny snow pump track in the Alps. The man-made course is packed with moguls and jumps and is so narrow that the slightest wrong move lands him on the ground below.

It’s tricky enough for a cameraperson to keep their lens aimed at the right player during a fast-moving game like basketball. But this pro goes above and beyond the call, not only focusing on the action between the players but zooming in on the ball at precisely the right moment and then right back into the game.

Gridiron fan? Flash your cash with the Pro Style Sports’ Football Wallet. It’s made from real football leather with the pebbly texture of pro balls. It breaks in like a real football, with a brown split-grain leather interior, and an exterior hand-stitched with white polymer lace to keep your grip on money, ID, and gameday tickets.

Known to many as The Mountain on Game of Thrones, Hafþór Björnsson spent more than a decade as a Strongman. But since becoming The World’s Strongest Man, he is reshaping his career and his body to become a professional boxer. Pete Banks’ short documentary explores what motivates the mighty Hafþór.

Equally at home on the neighborhood gridiron or on a trophy shelf, the Shinola Leather Football has all the timeless good looks of Shinola Detroit’s first furnishings and accessories collection for Crate and Barrel. It’s all in the vintage details, from the rich brown leather to the contrasting raw leather lacings. An instant heirloom.

If you catch enough air on a trampoline, it’s not terribly hard to do a single or even a double backflip. But Ernest Brenchley from Radial Flipz is an overachiever, and with the help of a few of his friends adding some extra spring, he managed to pull a record-setting 8-rotation backflip before coming in for a landing.

The Japanese sport of Bo-Taoshi is one of the craziest games we’ve ever seen. The chaotic war game pits teams against each other as they attempt to knock a player off the top of a pole, guarded by dozens of defenders at its base. It’s kind of like Capture the Flag, but the flag is a man.

Writer-director Sam H. Buchanan’s amusing short film imagines what it would be like if sports like golf, tennis, and billiards were played with a bowling ball instead of their normal game balls. Naturally, the added weight and mass make things a little more difficult, though it could make ice hockey even more exciting.

Tired of freezing your butt off at sporting events? Coleman’s padded seat warms your bottom for up to three hours on a charge. It folds up for easy carrying and has a dual battery holder for doubling runtime or charging your phone with a second OneSource battery. It’s also got a hook for holding it on bleacher seats.

Connect 4 is usually played with a small, tabletop game grid. But the guys from How Ridiculous prefer to super-size things. A while back, they made a version of the game that was played by shooting hoops. Now they’ve built a version that’s played by kicking soccer balls into it. It requires some serious accuracy to play and win.

Want to play some basketball, but don’t have a court to play on? The Q came up with a version of the game you can play on a tabletop. Players each control a cable-driven robot arm to pick up mini basketballs and drop them through their opponent’s hoop. It’s not as slick as Toyota’s robot, but it’s a lot cheaper.

Long-time prankster Rémi Gaillard couldn’t make it to the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, so he put on his own version of the event wherever he could find the room. Rémi competes against himself in events such as the random lady’s purse toss, downhill moving walkway kayaking, and car wash surfing.