Summertime is the best time for playing outdoor sports, as the sun is so inviting that no one can help but get out and start sweating. But anytime is a good time for playing indoor games and sports, as weather conditions matter not.
Many a time have our outdoor sports dates with our friends been canceled due to bad weather conditions, but (almost) never have an indoor sports date been postponed because of the same reason in the history of playing indoor sports.
Europeans are credited for the birth of many sports the world is crazy about, such as football, tennis, golf, and gymnastics, while Americans, as always, never lack for inventions. They have invented basketball, volleyball, American football (gridiron), baseball and many others.
Regardless of where were, they invented, today we have a wide and diverse range of both outdoor and indoor sports.
As we can never be too sure of the weather and even less of the correct weather forecast, an increasing number of recreational seekers is opting out for indoor games.
You may not be able to climb a mountain or do scuba diving, but there are a whole lot of sports you can play indoors, even some that are originally played outdoors. With no further ado, here are the world’s most popular indoor sports you can play away from the sun or windy weather.
Basketball
If we’re talking about professional sports that are played indoors, then basketball is easily and without any doubt the sport to top our list. Basketball is the second most popular sport of all time with many factors considered, not only according to the size of the fan-base.
Also, it is a sport that both men and women engage in, both professionally and as a hobby. NBA, or National Basketball Association, is the most prestigious basketball league not only in the United States but also in the world. Although basketball is largely played out on the streets, it is considered as an indoor sport.
Futsal
Futsal is an indoor sport that originated in 1930. Unlike football, futsal is played on a hard court, on a smaller pitch, with a smaller ball and with fewer players. The rules are also different. For example, there’s no limitation to substitutions as in football, there’s no offside and a standard match is consisted of two halves of 20 minutes.
The smaller ball and the hard surface allow the players to get creative and demonstrate their technique much more than they would on a big grassy football field. Futsal is played on an international level with many countries from around the world participating. The current FIFA Futsal World Champion is Brazil, thanks in particular to their top scorer Falcão with 339 goals in 201 matches.
Chess
“Chess is a mental torture” is what Garry Kasparov, the world’s most famous chess player of all time, once stated. Ironically, he couldn’t imagine his life without chess. Chess is a game that challenges your brain, your calculation, visualization and strategic skills. The goal of this ancient IQ-requiring game is to checkmate the opponent’s king.
Played on a chessboard of 64 squares and with each player having 16 pieces to move, chess is both a competitive and fun game. Being a game that has no age-restrictions, it makes a great platform to prove your brilliance to your friends or relatives.
Bowling
It may seem like a leisure activity specially designed for people who never take sports seriously, but bowling is actually a popular indoor sport that has millions of fans all over the world. This sport takes more than carelessly rolling the ball from a specific distance and praying that it’ll hit the pins.
Instead, it requires an accurate eye and good bowling skills to hit as many pins as possible at the end of the bowling lane. If you have ever played it, you know that bowling is not as easy to play as it seems. If you haven’t and you’ve only watched professional bowlers who make it look easy, you probably think I am some kind of nutcase who believes hitting multiple pins with a large ball is hard.
Volleyball
Found at the end of the 19th century, volleyball is one of the oldest competitive sports. Volleyball is played indoors, on the grass and on the beach, but the indoor variant is considered to be most popular, as it’s been a regular part of the Summer Olympic Games program ever since 1964. This team sport has 2 teams with 6 players each.
The teams are separated by a net and the goal is to ground the ball on the opponent team’s court in only three touches. To play this dynamic game, you only need to know a few of the six basic skills: serve, set, pass, block, attack and dig. It is a high-energy game and requires a lot of running, jumping, overall mobility and excellent stamina.
Table Tennis
If you’re looking for a quicker, more dynamic and indoor variant of tennis, table tennis is the best you can find. Identically, it can be played either by two or four players, but now with a lightweight and small bat and small ball. The court is another significant difference, as table tennis takes place on a hard table instead of a huge court, with a net in the middle to separate the two or four players.
Table tennis, or also known as ping pong, is a highly intense physical game, so it requires great stamina, laser focus and serious skills (that is, if you hate losing).
Billiards
Yet another hit-to-win game. Billiards has the same elegance of bowling and is available in many different variants. The reason why I use plural instead of the singular is because billiards is known and available in many different versions. Assumingly, though, the goal of every billiard game is to, using a cue stick, strike the billiard balls and insert them into the holes. Billiards has an extensive history that begun somewhere in the early 15th century.
Snooker is by far the most popular billiard game and one can make a fortune out of it if engaged professionally. However, this prestigious sport requires nifty ball-hitting skills.
Squash
If you’re looking for a new indoor physical activity to break a sweat, you outta try squash. Ask snobs like Frasier and Niles – they will recommend you a game of squash too. Squash is played by either two or four players in a four-walled court with a specific tiny ball.
One of the players strikes the ball with their racket to the playable surface of the four walls and the other one is responsible to handle the rebound. As few other games from this list, playing squash may seem easy at first, but it requires a great amount of physical effort, stamina and mobility.
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