C-Ball

C-Ball is the first and only sport designed from the ground up to be played in microgravity. It bears some resemblance to older sports, but its unique elements make it one of a kind. The technology necessary to gives it a high barrier to entry, so it is not widely played, but it makes for highly entertaining TV and thus has a lot of fans.

Arena

To understand C-Ball, one needs to look at the arena first. The game is played in special cylindrical space stations. The arena itself is at the station's center and around 100 meters in length and 10 meters in diameter. The station rotates around its long axis, which generates artificial gravity. Typical rotation rates are between 15 and 20 revolutions per minute, generating between 0.5 and 1 g. This is faster than is used for normal artificial gravity using wide rings, which has some interesting implications for the game.
The arena floor (or is it walls?) features a number of obstacles, mostly pillars jutting radially inwards. The surfaces are padded for the safety of the players. In the center of the flat ends of the cylinder are pressure sensitive disks called end caps. They are about a meter in diameter. The specific dimensions and rotation rate as well as the design of the obstacles are unique to each arena.

Basic Rules

C-Ball is played in teams of five players. The goal of each team is to touch the ball to the end plate of the opposite team. Throwing the ball at it gives the team one point, holding the ball up to it gives three. Players may only take one step between catching and throwing the ball. This does include jumps, however. C-Ball is a non contact sport, so to take the ball from the other team, players have to intercept it in mid-air. Also if a team drops the ball, the opponents get it. The game time is divided into two halves of 45 minutes. After half time the teams switch sides, so arenas can be somewhat asymmetrical without making the game unfair.

Physics

The unique character of C-Ball comes from the physics of the environment, in which it is played. The rotating room with a relatively small diameter has many counterintuitive effects on the motion of objects within it. Top players need to develop a good grasp on these effects on top of their athleticism. Firstly, the "gravity" (actually it is centrifugal force) felt by players depends on their height above the floor. If a player climbs unto an obstacle and is halfway to the center axis, they will experience only half the gravity compared to the arena floor. This enables high and far jumps, with players leaping between pillars and many acrobatic displays of skill. The rotation of the arena means that object moving radially experiences a significant Coriolis force. A ball thrown straight ahead will instead curve to the side. Balls meeting there target on the end of a strange winding path and players seemingly almost flying through the arena are what made the sport an instant audience favorite.

Etymology

What the "C" in the sport's name actually stands for has been a matter of debate for a long time. Popular opinions include "cylinder", "centrifugal", "centripetal" and "Coriolis". The reality of the matter is that the consortium of sports teams, TV broadcasters and space travel corporations who invented and popularized the game in the early 2000s simply chose the name based on market research and no meaning was ever officially confirmed.