The high-flying, jaw-dropping, insane trampoline-dunking sport of SlamBall makes its U.S. return in Las Vegas this summer.
After making and incredible run in the early 2000s, the sport makes a comeback at Cox Pavilion on July 21. Eight teams will have a chance to be crowned the kings of SlamBall with a final championship in August. All the action will be on the ESPN networks.
Acclaimed film and TV producer Mike Tollin was involved with SlamBall from the beginning. It was back in 1999 when Mason Gordon came up with the idea for SlamBall. Gordon was working at Mike's production company Tollin/Robbins (Mike Tollin and Brian Robbins). Gordon sketched out the concept on a napkin and shared his concept with his boss. After putting him off for a few months, Tollin would eventually agree to help Gordon move forward with plans for the new sport. It was a good decision. In 2002, SlamBall became a sensation, airing for two seasons on Spike TV and several other seasons on various other outlets. SlamBall eventually made its way to become a popular league in China and had a presence there until the coronavirus outbreak kept people away from the stands.
Social media fans have recently been clamoring for the return of SlamBall, posting highlight dunks on many different platforms. Their campaign worked.
Mike Tollin joined SportsJam with Doug Doyle to talk about why SlamBall is back.
"During the pandemic, social media was booming and that was the way people were communicating. SlamBall was going viral on all kinds of social media platforms without us lifting a finger. Mason and I were still dreaming the dream. We started seeing these numbers. There were several million views for a seven-second SlamBall clip that we didn't even know how it got there. All of a sudden there were #bring back SlamBall messages that we would have been stupid to ignore. And then it's about raising the dough and just going out to the marketplace and seeing if the sophisticated investment community supports our notion that the world is finally ready to bring back SlamBall. We got great response from the media outlets. We're thrilled to end up with a big commitment with ESPN."
The multiple Emmy and Peabody award-winning film producer certainly knows what success is all about. He served as executive producer of the 2020 Emmy award-winning The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dynasty. Tollin is also the executive producer for the 2022 TV miniseries The Captain, an in-depth doc about New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. His brilliant career as a producer includes being part of hit movies such as Coach Carter, Varsity Blues, Radio, Big Fat Liar and Wild Hogs as well as popular TV series like Smallville, Arli$$ and One Tree Hill.
Ken Carter, the coach portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in Coach Carter, will be one of the coaches in the new league. Tollin says that one example of how the SlamBall community has stayed together.
"Several of the coaches are back. A lot of the players who have gone from their 20's to their 40's are back now as either assistant coaches or administrators. There's a guy named Stan Fletcher, who we called "Shakes" because he just had all the moves. Now he's teaching these moves to a whole new generation of players."
SlamBall is a mixture of basketball and football. Offensive players try to score points on trampoline-like structures with the chance of getting hit or tackled by a defender. The positions include gunner, handler and the stopper. Tollin says veracity best describes that what's needed to be a star in the league.
"There's four trampolines embedded into each side of the court. Two horizontal. Two vertical. The top tramp is farther away from the basket than Michael Jordan experienced taking off from the foul line and dunking the ball."
ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN+ together will air more than 30 hours of programming for the sport across five weekends.
Michael Tollin grew up in Havertown, Pennsylvania, a suburb outside of Philadelphia and is loyal to his Philadelphia teams. His late father, Sol Tollin, played basketball and baseball for Haverford College from 1947 to 1951. Both Tollin and his father were inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.
Tollin graduated from Stanford University and was a play-by-play announcer that university's major sports.
"That was the most fun I ever got to have. My best buddies in the world, the four of us, we affectionately call ourselves "The Four Donkeys", ran the KZSU Sports Network for football, basketball and baseball. Those were good times."
The co-founder of Mandalay Sports Media worked for MLB Productions in New York and says he's always been a baseball guy. He is part of two minor league baseball organizations.
You can SEE the entire SportsJam with Doug Doyle interview with Mike Tollin here.
