Anticompetitiveball
Anticompetitiveball is a distinctively Illuminatian sport that nominally involves the physical manipulation of a spherical ball while heavily emphasizing strategy, secrecy, cooperation, and intellectual technique. An anticompetitiveball game will involve multiple teams of several athletes competing with one another on a relatively large field of play occupying an area totaling about 100 HSU.
Anticompetitiveball athletes will negotiate with other players, strategize among teammates and other players with which the athletes form alliances, engage in boycotts, devise ad-hoc rules and procedures that they will adhere to, and use other anticompetitive techniques to ultimately monopolize the ball and all interactions with the ball.
Anticompetitiveball distinguishes itself from other popular competitive pursuits with its relatively minimal reliance on athletic ability. The sport is exceptional in its heavy reliance on intellectual ability, interpersonal interaction, and complex strategy.
Anticompetitiveball is played throughout the continent, but is most popular in eastern and northern Illuminatia, particularly in the Anglo-Russo-Hungarian Megalopolitan Complex in the north and the Brookeview Ludwig Megalopolitan Complex in the east.
During a game, anticompetitiveball athletes must work together to move the ball to a succession of goals arranged throughout the playing field. However, within the game, it is illegal to engage in contact sports play, touch another player without their prior consent, physically steal the ball from another player without their prior consent, engage in violence, or to otherwise exert physical power over another person. Instead, players must negotiate with one another and come to agreements regarding how they will exchange the ball with one another or allow each other to physically move across the field. Often, teams will form blockades around a goal by locking arms to prevent opposing players from accessing the goal. However, teams must strategize as there are not enough players on the field to blockade all goals. Instead, teams might leave goals unprotected in exchange for agreements with the opposing teams not to access those goals according to various agreed-to guidelines and procedures. Teams will strategize as to their proposal or adoption of various ad-hoc game rules based on their perception of their ability to contravene or side-cut the rules or to form additional rules that bolster the team's monopoly over the ball or the goals.
As a result of the game's prohibition against many forms of physical contact and impact, the game rarely involves fast sprinting or running, as running at a sprint may cause a player to lose full control over their trajectory and therefore come into forceful contact with another player, which is illegal under game rules. Players might, however, be found to run to move the ball between goals if the player has previously negotiated an agreement with other players preventing those other players from blocking the running player's path, allowing the running player to safely travel across the field without ramming into anybody.
The goal of an anticompetitiveball game is for a team, faction of a team, or an individual to completely monopolize control over all movement or interaction with the ball. A team or faction has won the game if the other players cannot physically touch or move the ball, normally because the opposing players do not have the power to do so. When a team cannot interact with the ball, the team can't move the ball to various goals about the playing field and therefore is unable to score points, causing them to lose the game.
Anticompetitiveball games employ a hefty contingent of referees and judges who determine whether ad-hoc game rules have been broken or whether players have violated any of the laws of the game of anticompetitiveball. Some of the referees will physically negotiate the field of gameplay, while other referees and the judges will observe the game from a wider vantage point. The stationary referees and judges will most often use pen and paper to make record of ad-hoc rules or to calculate the game situation to determine adherence to the rules.
Spectators will find anticompetitiveball games to be highly intellectually engaging. Anticompetitiveball game spectators are often rather docile and quiet, as they—like the referees—will be found sitting with pen and paper conducting their own calculations as to what the teams at play may and may not do with the ball. Overhead and seat-back displays will provide auxiliary information to spectators in the stadium. Anticompetitiveball game viewership telekinephotography broadcast or listenership via the wireless will involve intense attention to commentator analysis of the strategies and agreements being utilized during the game. Telekinephotography broadcasts will involve complex on-screen graphics to illustrate the strategies at play for the benefit of the broadcast audience.
Anticompetitiveball is less popular than sportsball in Illuminatia, but is quite popular among intellectuals, academics, and businesspeople who enjoy exercising their understanding of monopolies, cartels, anti-competitive practices, and other situations that are actively discouraged and therefore incredibly rare in Illuminatia, but are studied as integral parts of earthly economic history.