The Fascinating Sport of Roller Derby

Attending a roller derby event is unlike any other sporting event you might want to enjoy. This sport is filled with action and drama.

You’ll see amazing outfits that would put the WWE to shame but no acting or pageantry.

Instead, you’ll see men and women engaged in a sport that is unapologetically aggressive, a full-contact whirlwind of hair and wheels, and a loud, raucous sport made for those willing to jump into the ring with both feet and a set of wheels. This incredible sport has been around for much longer than you might think, and it has gained a great deal of popularity in the past few years.

The Starting Point

The first roller derby event took place on August 13, 1935, in Chicago at the Chicago Coliseum. The idea was to bring in the depression-era crowds with something exciting and fun for them to see. This sport was the brainchild of Leo Seltzer, an event promoter at the time, who had read that more than 90 percent of Americans had enjoyed roller skating during their lives. This gave him the idea to put the event on wheels and allow people to participate in an exciting, fast-paced event that would entertain the crowds with something new.

Round and Round They Go

The first versions of this sport featured teams consisting of one man and one woman rolling around on a track. There wasn’t as much physical violence as there is in the sport today. This new form of entertainment gained popularity, with 20,000 people in attendance for the first Transcontinental Derby. This was a race of 57,000 laps on a flat track, with each team ticking off miles that were represented on a large map giving the route from New York to San Diego. This marathon race took nearly three weeks to complete.

New Rules and More Contact Were Needed

To avoid the popularity of roller derby from waning, rules were created that would change the game for good. Rather than simply having skaters roll around racing each other without any contact or aggression, a form of this sport that added several degrees of physicality was created. The new rules allowed for a team of ten skaters to be made, with five on the track at a time.

The team on the track consists of four blockers and one jammer. The jammer has the job of lapping the other team while the blocker work to stop the other team’s jammer and clear a path for their own. Every time a jammer laps a member of the opposing team, they score a point for their own team.

These new rules allowed this sport to become much more physical, create a new level of strategy, and entice skaters to solve problems to create the scoring needed to win a match.

Massive Popularity and a Near-Cult Following

By 1949, this sport was a national sensation and likely more successful than its founder ever thought possible. There were skaters with cool stage names, similar to what we see in WWE, with names like Billy Bogash, Gerry Murray, and Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn, which were becoming well-known names for the sport.

Roller derby was popular enough that it was featured in a couple of movies during the 1950s. “The Fireball” is a film that hit theaters in 1950, featuring Marilyn Monroe as the star of the film. During that same year, another short film was released called “Roller Derby Girl,” which is a film that was nominated for an Academy Award.

This was certainly a popular time for the sport that was growing and giving Americans the entertainment they desired.

The Fading of the Sport

It only took a few years after the sport was in movies for it to burn out and much of the country lost interest in this sport. While some skaters moved to California when Seltzer moved it there, most found other activities to enjoy. By 1959, Leo Seltzer retired, and his son, Jerry, took over the operation and found a way to bring this sport back to popularity. Instead of increasing the athleticism of this sport, he increased the drama to make it much more entertaining.

Not only did Jerry increase the drama of roller derby, but he also started taping the games and selling them to local TV stations to show audiences. This tactic worked well, and by 1965, the following was back to where it had been during the heyday this sport enjoyed right before the two movies had been released.

Heading to MSG with Sex-Equal Rules

The 1965 championships of roller derby were held at Madison Square Garden after being gone from this venue for 13 years. The crowd for this event was 13,421 in attendance, which is incredible for a small sport. One of the biggest attractions of this sport is the fact that both men and women can participate on the same teams, skate on the same track at the same time, follow the same rules, and be treated entirely equally during a match.

A Popular Sport Today

While it’s probably never going to reach the levels of popularity of some of the major sports in America, roller derby is a sport that has grown and has a serious following. With both sexes competing equally, a simple set of rules, and lots of color, activity, violence, and noise, this is a sport that appeals to the base desires that we have.

Will You Give Roller Derby a Try?

Around the country, you can find places that hold roller derby tournaments and offer games that you can attend. You might want to go see a game in person before you decide to participate in one. Even if you’re used to being in rough and tumble sports, or you think you’re a great skater, nothing can prepare you for the challenges of this sport.

You might think that roller derby is a relatively new sport, but it’s not. It’s been around for nearly 100 years, and with the following and participants that enjoy it, this sport could be around for another century.