Why you should AVOID football and soccer and Manaball instead
America's love for contact sports
Ask anyone that lives in the U.S. and without a doubt, football and soccer are some of the most popular sports played and watched at schools, parks, and national TV. Hockey, basketball, and baseball being among them as well. Major sports events like the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Olympics, the World series, and March Madness are just an example of America's insane passion for sports that fans and businesses alike schedule their calendars around.
Concussion risks from football and soccer
Football sits comfortably as the #1 most watched and played sport while the soccer craze is rapidly grabbing attention as one of the top 5 popular sports in the U.S.
While football in European and Asian countries may mean a totally different sport then football in the U.S. there is one key similarity between the two sports: Physical contact and LOTS of it. In both sports, two opposing teams battle each other for procession of a ball and through tactics like strategic player positioning, defensive/offensive schemes, and etc, one team attempts to score on the other team. During those attempts, bodies will be jumping, sliding, tripping, and colliding.
As the popularity of these sports grow, so does injuries. According to StandfordChildren'sHealth, Roughly 30 million children and teens are apart of some sort of organized sport, 3.5million injuries are an result of those participation each year. From the ages of 5 - 14, 215,000 were treated in hospitals for football related injuries. 88,000 from soccer related injuries.
From 1990 to 2014, soccer alone has seen an increase of injuries by 78% with an yearly rate of injuries increased by %111 among youth of 7-17 years of age. Concussions/CHI (Closed-head injuries) consist of 7% of the overall injuries. Source: ScienceDaily
While football is #1 in the most popular U.S. sport, it is also #1 for concussion related injuries at a rate of 11.2 for every 10,000 games and practices. High school players more at risk for concussion related injuries then college students. *Soccer may possibly surpass football soon with concussion related injuries*
Soccer is generally played with an outfit that consists of an team jersey, shorts, and high knee socks but with no padding. In this sport, players are not allowed to use hands but are encouraged to use their heads and legs to prevent the opposing team from scoring or to score. As you can imagine, when two or more players jump up at the same time to head bump the soccer ball, and miss, their heads may collide and result in an serious injury like a concussion.
Football on the other hand, is played with a helmet and padding. While tackling in soccer is done with the legs, tackling in football is done with head and shoulders. Because of this full on contact style of play, head collisions is very common and concussion related injuries are more prone to happen then soccer. Even with the protection of helmets, concussions unfortunately cannot be prevented.
How does Manaball make it safer?
The best thing about our ManaBalls is that they're so mobile, they can be utilized in almost any sport but we use them mostly for soccer and football style games. With our Manaballs, you basically are playing football and soccer but with a giant "bubble" surrounding you for protection. Depending on your height, you'll have at least 6 inches of space from the top of the bubble ball to your head when you put it on. Inside the bubble ball is a chamber where you climb in and put it on like a back pack with shoulder straps that secure you in at all times no matter how you're knocked over and also with handles in front of you to grip for stability.