How do you create a new sport?
The example of Raqball

It’s not every day that a new sport is invented. And it's even less often that a sport is invented in Sophia Antipolis. Raqball came to Chris Oven's mind on a hot July day when he looked at a one-way sign. That was ten years ago. Today, that heat stroke of an idea has largely paid off, as the sport has gained local and national recognition and is beginning to go international. He has built its institutions (the French Raqball Federation and the International Federation), he has created its equipment manufacturer (the start-up RZBALL), he has conceptualised its own technical and safety standards (R2.0). And above all, he has been lucky enough to find a team that does not let him down, starting with Valérie Manhajm.

Get lots of « raqqets », a ball, make two teams and have fun. The aim of Raqball is to shoot in the « targget » and to use «drib’up» or «ground» passes to get there. While it must be admitted that the "dream team" didn't really make much effort with the lexicon, the simplicity of the game is attractive in itself. And above all, it appeals to a wide range of audiences.

The main strength of its inventor was that he immediately made the idea a reality. As he himself says, "we are all endowed with billions of unrealised ideas. Afterwards, we can end up regretting things but this is never the case for me. My strength, when I feel that the idea is good, is that I go straight to the implementation. So Chris set about making the first prototype. "I bought wood, shower curtains and a hammock. I made the first PVC rackets and went to buy balls. After that, it was time to test it out. It was in April 2013 that Raqball met its potential audience for the first time. A two-day French-Lebanese meeting organised by the UNSS gave Chris the opportunity to present his game. Not without some trepidation. On the first day, he asked a ten-year-old boy to test his prototype. The boy easily grasped the racket, started to make passes to him, and... You know the rest.

Beyond the romanticised history, creating a sport is above all technical, administrative and insurance-based, and it requires solid financial investment. To fully understand the stakes, there are two ways in: through the sport's regulatory institutions, and through the equipment manufacturers, both of which have their own economic model. It was the startup RZBALL COMPANY that started the ball rolling for the raqball institutions at the beginning of 2017. Because in order to develop the practice of a sport, you need, on the one hand, players, and on the other hand, equipment and a place where you can practise the activity. The right size of pitch, for example, which can be adapted anywhere, even in areas where land is scarce. The team decided on 20x10m. Then there is the idea of a mobile facility that can be easily shared between different user profiles. The commune of Breil-sur-Roya, for example, bought a Raqball kit to equip the municipal tennis court and the Breil schools during extracurricular activities. The kit alternates from one place to another. A major challenge was to fit a 2.80m panel into a 1.37m case. The challenge was met with flying colours by the back office, Thomas Clauss, in direct contact with the Dutch design office Alskar, a specialist in the mass production of sports equipment. As far as design is concerned, the design office did not invent anything. The team provided him with precise specifications, based on the initial hammock and shower curtain, and of course improved since then. Alskar meant that the prototype to be professionalised with the material used, with a high technological value, and with the idea of setting standards. So Raqball created its own rules and was able to navigate the systems in a very agile way. The BE created standards for standardising signs and for safety in schools, and Apave certified them. The mobile field has become RB2.0 and the equipment manufacturer is starting to protect the patents.

Once the design office stage was over, it was necessary to raise sufficient funds to enable the mass production of the equipment and the creation of the structures. RZBALL received support from the Public Investment Bank (BpiFrance) as well as from the Region, and the other part was provided by its own shareholders. Then it was necessary to source and find the subcontractors who would manufacture the objects. The aluminium is bought from the Netherlands, the balls from the UK, the screws from France. The assembly of the finished product is done in a local E.S.A.T. near Antibes. Nothing has been left to chance.

Christophe Lehmann has been in charge of this strategy since 2015. It was from the moment that the two Chris met that that the changes in direction accelerated. The focus shifted from useful trial and error to business. In the wake of the creation of RZBALL, the international federation was set up at the end of 2017 to file regulations and protect the new sport. A Belgian expert lawyer, who worked at the Anti-Doping Commission, filed the first official Raqball regulations at the Federal Court of Justice in Brussels. Experience has shown that many sports have been interpreted differently depending on the context if they don’t have an international umbrella federation, sometimes with great inconsistencies as sports federations communicate little from country to country. The creation of this international federation makes it possible both to protect the sport effectively and to capture the benefits of licences once the dynamics of the clubs have been set in motion.

One year after the creation of the international Raqball federation, the first national federation was created in Valbonne at the end of 2018 and the first leisure clubs followed. The marketing of the kits began in May 2021 and today 50 sites in France are equipped with at least two cases, mostly municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants. The primary target for the company continues to be primary schools, that's what it is betting on and as part of this strategy, the communes are automatically invited to play a significant role in the development and the diffusion of this new sport. After all, it is not only a question of taste for the activity but also and above all a question of access to good infrastructure. Frédéric Branger would agree. There is nothing cultural about not doing something when you have neither land nor equipment. To get Raqball off the ground internationally, Frédéric is in advanced talks with Canada and other prospective countries are also being looked at. The team is now looking for serious partners to help with its foreign strategy. We can only wish him every success in this project. Sportingly.