Sports MBA Student Has Hand in Launch of a Brand-New Sport
Women’s team Orange Crush beat their opponents 11-8-2 in the first-ever OmegaBall Championships.
On Friday and Saturday, March 10 & 11, the first-ever OmegaBall Championships took place at the Great Park in Irvine, CA. OmegaBall is a new, soccer-based sport with three teams, a circular pitch, and no offsides. Sports MBA student Laurel Smith (SMBA ‘22) has been working with OmegaBall since October, and has been able to watch the sport go from a theory to a reality in just a few months.
Smith has been working for Kilowatt Events as an Operations Coordinator since starting the SMBA program, and soon after being hired, was asked by founder Anthony Dittmann to jump on board to help out with his new project, OmegaBall. To that point, OmegaBall consisted solely of the sport’s three founders, so Smith has been able to grow their role from basic graphic design work to athlete management and tournament operations in just a few months.
“This has been a truly hands-on experience,” says Smith, “Given how new we are, I have so much more responsibility in my role, and I get the opportunity to sit in on meetings with our sponsors and experience managers, like Capelli and Legends Entertainment. At a larger organization, I’d probably be fetching coffee and answering phones.” Smith’s typical responsibilities include deck creation, sponsor, vendor, and athlete communication, and even include offering input on rules of the game and tournament structure, truly pushing the limits of “other duties as assigned.” On the two days of the tournament, they were responsible for athlete check-in/out, uniform and compensation distribution, vendor management, and also helped with load-in/out.
The tournament itself went off without a hitch. Over the course of two days, six men’s and six women’s teams battled it out for the Championship titles. The game uses the same skills as soccer, but is played on a circular pitch with three teams and three goals. Each team defends one goal and may score on either of the other two. There are no offsides, and cherry-picking is strongly encouraged, so the pressure is on. The game also features quick restarts, so play is continuous with almost zero stoppage time over the three 15-minute periods. None of the participating athletes had ever played OmegaBall before, and their experience in soccer ranged from high school level to retired professional.
Athletes traveled in from all over Southern California to play, and some even met their teammates just hours prior to their first match. To add to the action at the tournament, the Championship matches were also being recorded for broadcast on FS2. Given that this was the first time the sport was being played by anyone, the focus was on having fun, and athletes and coaches were encouraged to give their input on how the game could be improved in future tournaments. Smith reports, “The energy of both days was electric - you could feel how excited everyone was to be a part of something from the very beginning, and I think that’s really reflected in the intensity and level of play we got to see on the field.” At Friday’s end, the women’s Team Crush and men’s Team Smoke were crowned OmegaBall Champions, beating their opponents 11-8-2 and 12-9-4, respectively. The long-term goal for the sport is to create a national league, similar to that of Pickleball or Spikeball.
The OmegaBall Championships will be broadcast on FS2 on on Tuesday, April 5, with the Women’s Match at 8:30PM ET, and Men’s at 9:30PM ET. The livestream recording of the championship games is currently available on the OmegaBall channel on YouTube. The next OmegaBall tournament is slated for November 2022, so keep your eyes peeled for more action then! To learn more about OmegaBall, check out omegaball.com.
Men’s team Grey Smoke is interviewed by FS2 after their 12-9-4 Championship cinch.
OmegaBall is a new, soccer-based sport that is played with 3 teams, 3 goals, and no offsides on a circular pitch.
