PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — There’s a local sport that’s continuing to sweep the globe and it all started in Beaverton, Oregon.
It’s called Roofball. It has its own scoring system and tournaments have been played in Oregon dating back to 1998.
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But recently, Roofball went from a fun-loving sport with just a handful of people to have ever participated, to Division I athletes competing in it.
In February 2023, a Reddit post shared Roofball’s 2008 World Championship YouTube link, and – much to Adam Willis’s surprise – Roofball was “blowing up.”
He now has people hosting Roofball tournaments all over the country and many have made their way to the Beaver State to compete in Beaverton.
Adam is the President and Founder of the Roofball Federation of America and recently joined us on a KOIN Conversation to discuss the rise in popularity, as well as how the sport has evolved over the years.
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First thing’s first – how do you play Roofball?
“Well, the most simple form is you throw a football at a target on a roof,” Willis said.
“Originally, it was the actual natural gas vent on my mom’s roof. That’s where we invented the game… It’s getting scary to say the year now, but 1998, summer 1998. We were throwing, first a rugby ball, and then a bunch of footballs up at the natural gas vent.”
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Then a game with rules and an entire scoring system was born.
“So you get five points for hitting the pole itself,” Willis explained. “If you get the ball to go up and around the pole and it comes down the other side, that’s ten points. So that’s a lot harder. But obviously a good reward when it comes back down. If you catch it, that’s a bonus point to whatever has already happened. And then you do not want to throw it over the roof because that’s a minus five.”
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Oh yes, the dreaded throwing the football over the roof and having to make the walk of shame back to the backyard – That’s a real thing.
Plus there’s usually a cameraperson that follows closely as players go retrieve their overthrown ball.
Many of the tournaments have been broadcast either on the local public access channel or YouTube. Now, Roofball tournaments are streamed live on YouTube.
As for that YouTube link that was shared on Reddit, Adam recalled that time with a smile.
“When that post got posted…. we had 12 subscribers… and within a week afterwards, we were over a thousand.”
Since then, the number has continued to grow.
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From having 15 to 20 players dedicated to playing Roofball in the Portland area, tournaments went on the road that year after the Reddit post, with tournaments played in New Jersey, Michigan and San Diego.
Willis went onto say, “It’s one of those, you know, 25-year overnight ‘success’ stories, success being in quotes there. But it definitely blew up out of nowhere. It was it was a crazy couple of weeks and then Barstool got ahold of it and started talking about Roofball.”
In June 2023, Barstool hosts held their own tournament in New Jersey.
Roofball has even been played and broadcasted in Australia.
But it’s the original roof in a lovely neighborhood in Beaverton, Ore. that has people in awe when they travel to PDX to compete in the tournament.
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“They’re looking at it like you might look at the Roman Colosseum or someone’s first trip to Madison Square Garden or something, and they’re just looking around like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s the actual roof’,” Willis laughed.
“And I’m like, yeah, it’s my mom’s house. But sure, yeah… I get it. And that’s been one of the cool things is watching like the, the big eyes. Like a little kid going into Disneyland with, you know, being a 35-year-old man peeking around the corner and seeing my mom’s roof. That’s been very exciting and very weird,” Willis added with a smile.
The roof, the natural gas vent, the broadcast production crew, as well as the Willis family hosting tournaments in the front yard over the years has made Roofball a staple in the Portland metro area.
Now with the power of social media, folks are talking about or playing Roofball all over the world.
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Some have even gone as far as making a replica natural gas vent of the original Beaverton roof.
As Roofball looks to go from holding five regionals to eight in 2026, Adam’s hope is to keep the fun and organic growth coming, as he says they are always looking for more people who want to come play.
As Adam puts it:
“Roofball is as serious or as silly as you want it to be.”
He continued, “My thing is, I say ‘our silly game’, but in a lot of respects, taking a round leather ball and throwing through a hoop is kind of silly. Like, sports are kind of inherently silly. So I don’t say it as a negative or to diminish Roofball. I think it’s just a fun thing to do.”
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