NERFBALL IS OFFICIAL!

The news was announced yesterday; unfortunately, I had both my job and Toy Fair-related prep to get out of the way. Even so, I’ve watched the videos and seen the press releases. So let’s post all of that!

Athletics and Aiming

BRADENTON, FLORIDA – SEPTEMBER 22: Team Velocity poses together for the first time as a team for NERFBALL – Battle in the Bubble exhibition game at IMG Academy on September 22, 2023 in Bradenton, Florida. (Photo by Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for NERF)

In a similar fashion to the Nerf Ultra debut, Hasbro held a competition for the launch of the new brand/game. However, instead of being a target shooting competition, this was an actual game. With NFL great Donald Driver coaching one side, and Luke Goodman (the man known as “Out of Darts”) coaching the other. And knowing Luke, his team was going to be a force to be reckoned with. There’s too much dart blasting and competitive knowledge in his head!

In any case, it’s cool to watch one of the most recognizable people in the blaster hobby (and especially the MODDED hobby) be part of an actual Nerf-branded event.

WATCH THE PROMOTIONAL TOURNAMENT HERE ON THE HASBRO WEBSITE!

The game is easy to understand, with the ruleset available here. Tagging an opponent gets your team a point; the hit person then has to go around a barrier on their end to respawn. Throwing the ball into the goal nets 6 points, stops the clock, and resets the teams on their respective sides of the field. After four quarters, with four minutes each, the team with the most points wins. Certain penalties can give points to the other side (too mane people on the field, for example).

I spent my time at the airport actually watching everything, and it was actually fairly well done on the presentation side of things. Granted, this was all presented *after* the fact, but it went much smoother than the Dart Zone Pro Tour livestream, to say the least.

Naturally, everyone in the competition used the Nerf Pro Stryfe X. Which is certainly not a bad choice, and a great blaster for highlighting competitive blasting.

We’ll see how much Nerfball related material is at Toy Fair – for now, I need to sleep!