Why Foosball DIED... 

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Someone decided to put a foosball table at the cafe area in my work... we didn't really payed attention to it, it took a lot of time to gain some traction, but little by little we started finding how fun it was to play, we got a little secret club of employees and would meet to play in between breaks, all of the sudden it started becoming truly passionate and competitive, our skill level increased a lot, our style became more technical and strategic, we started having our own little championship, some of the older folks noticed and they joined us, they showed us their advanced techniques and skills, one of the guys in our group is an absolute unbeatable beast... turns out he was the foosball champion in his village in Algeria when he was young, we are now obsessed with the game, we take it very seriously, there is a lot of competition and we play at every chance we have, the table wore down a lot and is falling to pieces, we have been repairing it but I don't now how much longer it will hold, specially because some other coworkers started noticing out little foosball club and everyone wants to play now... 😁

Nice mini-doc! I'm one of the modern generation of foosballers. Currently ranked top 10 in the world and one of the best in England. If you want any follow-up about the European scene I'd be happy to chat! I think the sport is due a revival but it's really hard to break through without corporate sponsorships and media coverage.

How to make a Jimmy the Giant video: 1. Find a sport that was super popular and tell people about its history 2. Tell people that it got less popular because of XYZ 3. Say that it could be popular if their social media game was good 4. Finish with “peace”. Banging video though, I had no idea how popular fossball was! Seems criminal not to have a scene of joey and Chandler playing it though.

Hey Jimmy... the British Foosball Association here... thanks for making this great video. Brilliant research! You're completely on the button as to what happened in the 1970s with Tournament Soccer but actually these days there's a whole lot more happening in world table football than perhaps you made out in the film - and yes these days there's loads of stuff on social media too. Would love to have a chat and even better get you along to some of our events. Will.

Hey I just subscribed the other day! It's been fun looking at some of your older parkour content, but your more recent videos on obscure athletics (this video, the inline-skate video, and the g-tramp video) are what really brought me in!

Hi, here in Italy we have a fooseball table in every oratory, and sometimes in Summer there are Little tournament in the Village. But It's not competitive at all. It's feel strange to know that in England there aren't any of them !

here are some other niche things you might explore: bike trials (sort of like parkiur, but with a bike), drift trikes - going downhill on a tricycle for grown-ups

"in every bar, as they call it, they don't call it a pub for same reason." haha

I played during the 'Glory days' of the late 70s/early 80s. I even appeared briefly playing next to Leif Garret in the movie, "Longshot." There was a tournament held at the MGM Grand Hotel in Reno, NV that was billed as the "First Annual $50k" I'm certain the MGM Grand expected this to be a money maker for them as hundreds of players would attend. I suppose they assumed they would make money on hotel rooms, the restaurants, and of course some of their own gaming in the casino. And while the top-tier players were adults with ample maturity and means, a large portion of the foosball players were under-aged kids who could not afford the luxuries of a fancy casino. Many packed four to five into a single hotel room, ate at more modest restaurants elsewhere, and were simply too young to gamble. I don't mean to disrespect the younger players, I'm just saying this age group was probably not the casino's target demographic. This tournament also drew no spectator traffic beyond the players themselves. IMO these were some of the reasons the MGM Grand in Reno never hosted a "Second Annual $50k" foosball tournament. Nevertheless, I loved playing and I miss the spectacle of those big tournaments. Thanks for the video!

I can't say I ever cared much about foosball, but when I see you ulpoad a video about it I know it's going to be a banger. Love the deep dives into obscure sports man! Would love to see some more parkour though!

Foosball did have a resurgence in the late 80s and early 90s. That's when I started playing. You could go into any bar with a foosball table and the place would be packed with what I called weekend warriors. Basically pretty good players that didn't usually play in any of the tournaments. Which was great for players like me who at the time did play tournaments, because you could go in and lay 50 cents on the table and play half the night on just that, yet still be playing somewhat competitive matches. (When you won a game, you could stay on the table and the challenger would be the one who paid for the next game.) Unfortunately it kind of died off again and now it's only die hard tournament players who are playing the game.

It always cracked me up that the French call it 'le babyfoot' :D :D

Idk I've personally grown up with foosball being a thing, usually there was atleast some local establishment that had a table (as shoddy as some might have been). But I've never seen it been used all too seriously, mostly just people having some fun with it

Hey Jimmy, great video. Currently a tour player and have 3 Foosball tables at my sons middle school & currently running an after school Foosball club. Trying to keep it alive!

thanks for this nice video, Jimmy 🙏 we still love table soccer today 😅😍 and your video motivates us even more to make foosball great again 😅 we are working on developing the hobby sport and collecting public locations and foosball stadiums.

I played it at camp lodges where you had to buy the balls. It’s fun but players leave after they lose a few times.

Good Lord, I haven't seen a foosball table in 40 years, lol!

This is called "Foosball" in english? In German it's either "Tischfußball" or "Kicker"

Elitch Gardens did not used to be in the location you showed on the map, it was a few miles West of there until moving in 1994.

Paused the video in disbelief at 15:50 Couldn't believe that was from 2021!!!!!

Nobody likes to talk about it, why foosball died. I remember reading a story about how a few tournament directors walked away with the prize money and sponsor's pulled their sponsorships. This and the video games destroyed big money foosball. Correct me if I am wrong.

Foosball means Soccer in German lol (Fußball ist the exact German Word but it Sounds almost the Same). I asked my Englisch Teatcher, what Kicker (Foosball in German) in Englisch means and He Said Foosball, it was so wierd.

Thanks for covering this story.

I come from parkour but man, I love this videos. So interesting, all this underground cultures. 🙏Amazing work

Have you thought of doing a video on Subbuteo ? Oh yeah Lego released a table football set last year.

Here in spain foosball (furbolín as we call it) tables are still pretty common and popular in pubs.

You have become one of my favorite people to listen to about random stuff of our world lol.

Slippin in the comment to request again a video about street/free style unicycling.

On the PK vs non-PK content debate in these comments, I like this diverse content, but I hope you still do some more PK stuff too in the future. On a totally different note, what the hell is that piano tune around 6 minutes, it's driving me mental :)

I didn't know snoopy played foosball

Man we're slowly aproaching the arms wrestling video XD

Just a couple of ideas for vids.. Arm wrestling or trials bmx.

Awesome video, thanks for the excellent info. Could you do one on paintball? Would be interesting

footbag or hackysack wouldb be nice video

I always wanted to play this because it looks so fun

I loved foosball when I was kid and I was pretty good but not great. Pacman was awesome too! In Chile they call Foosball Taka Taka if you're interested in this little factoid !

Btw for anyone wondering…. A million in 1977 is the equivalent to anywhere between 3.5 and 4.2 million dollars big ups Jimmy 🔥❤️

im from portugal and moved to Toronto and where i moved to the area is called little portugal so a lot of Portuguese people and foosball was an every day thing i cant tell you how many times we would get into fights at bars bc it get intense especially when your playing for money and half the people are either coked out of their mind or drunk ah the good old days but foosball is not an easy game to get good at its very fast paced

Downhill drift triking would make good videa

Obrigado pelo conteúdo! Aqui no Brasil apenas algumas pessoas jogam, pois a nova geração não se interessa muito pelo Foosball 😥

The rise and fall of foosball reminds the path of MOBA genre a lot. Video game killed the foosball star, but who's going to kill the video game's?

Kinda funny you mention table soccer being quite rare in the UK, here in the Netherlands nearly every highschool, college or Uni has at least 1 set and it isn't uncommon to find them in pubs aimed largely at students. (Also as a FPV pilot, when will FPV get a video?)

LoL in Europe table football is still everywhere. In schools, in bars, behind the church and at least a couple of your friends would have one at home. It is still popular today but nobody really plays to make money. Nobody gives a crap about the tournaments in Europe. It's just fun to have a couple beers, eat some panini, smoke a cigarette and a game of table football to pass an evening with your friends. The maintenance of modern table football tables is close to none, they are made to be horribly abused. And usually a game is 0.6$ (0.5€) which is 10 balls. So it's really a cheap entrainment for 4 people for about 12minutes. If you want to spend an hour at the table is less than 3$ really. It doesn't really make money for the bar owner but since neither do arcades anymore a table football still pays for itself in less than a year i think but most importantly it keeps people in the bar longer so they drink more.

Here most pubs still have a table to this but when I started to go out on the weekends back in 06 we even held tournaments and put money on it, the whole shebang. After about 3-4 years it just for some reason died out and now some might have a game or two every other weekend night but I feel like we kinda started a new small hype that even travelled to near by towns and the next generation just never cared for it. Pool still being played a lot tho

I find it hilarious that the british created a bunch of words that they never used and then the americans and canadians started using them and the british got all pissy about it.

Enjoyed the content.

I had a foosball table in my basement as a kid.

Image how hard or easy it was to grow an independent business before the internet

love your videos you should do a video about spikeball

Im from Berlin and made a trip through Munich and Prague. In both cities I went into Bars wich had Foosball tables. In Munich there was a real shitty one, where u couldn't even move the sticks right and I won some games against strangers. I thought maybe Im not as bad. When I was in Prague the table was insanely good and I lost every game with no chance against the locals. So my tip: Don't try to win against a Prague Foosballplayer.

Where are Parkour documentaries ??

There's still foosball tables and a ton of bars here in the United States but I've never met anybody who was really into it. I'm not very good at it myself. I grew up in the '70s and '80s and I never saw a foosball tournament on TV or even heard about one and I've always been a huge sports fan. Not saying that didn't happen but it didn't make much impact on the culture.

He said that only 200 people showed up for the 81 worlds? I played in the novice double, and there were 255 teams. That would have been 510 people in just that one event. It was a lot of fun I came in 5th.

Sorry, but I only stan for Air Hockey.

In my country there are actually a pretty reasonable amount of football tables around.

Maybe the professional side of it died but the game certainly didn’t. Just saw the end are the literally no tables in England? I see them everywhere around here 😅

Ive watched legit all ur recent videos for months and i forgot to subscribe oops

More of a game than a sport.

No. No no.to win a game of foosball.

Ha! Crazy. My best friend just won World Doubles and has placed in a bunch of categories for years. Havelock represent. Edit: doubles not team.

Good job overall. However, the dates were wrong on some of the parts.

foosball is fun and can play 4 people at once..

This is parkour

I did’ t forget I love the game

When I watch a video thats from you and it is 10 min. long it feels like it actuly is 5 min long.

Honestly where did parkour went

Yeah, um, the West didn't nearly destroy itself in WW2....

lol i use to be a beast at foosball. need to get a table haha.

I thought you liked raycon

I expected literally anything but a video on table football

In Spain it's called "futbolín" and it's still reasonavly popular as a pub game. It helps that the futbolín table design is, in my opinion, vastly better than the foosball tables I enountered in the UK. For one thing, the player distribution is 3-4-3, more reasonable and realistic than the 2-5-3 of foosball. The foorballin table is also a bit bigger and slightly concave so that the ball is never stalled in a flat area. And yes, you'll get your arse thoroughly kicked by regular fubolín punters.

Foosball was always something at least 2 of my friends would have in either their garage or that one open space they kept for too long, so it makes sense as to why I only remember Foosball are when I went to a friends house.

Hell Yes my man, Keep up the deep dives. Also more interviews from first hand accounts would be swell

What you said about Prague is true, I went there 3 months ago and every pub/bar that young people went to had a table (if not several) and I got my ass absolutely handed to me by the locals

I've been playing Foosball for 35 years even had some of my matches on ESPN, you did a really good job covering the topic. i hope you find a local table and enjoy it half as much as i do.

I worked at a software company in the late '90s and early aughts. We had a foosball table in the breakroom and it was very popular with nearly all who worked there. In 2001, we had an in-house tournament. My partner and I made it to the doubles final. We lost to the Senior VP and his partner. I'm going to call that a wise career move. :)

Definitely a movie could be made about this, probably with actors like Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson.

My brother was Jim Wiswell, miss him still till this day, hardest lost but watching him play at his house was amazing. My Mom had all his trophies downstairs. I have all his foosball newspapers, books and even a cassette tape with foosball songs. Foosball was his high and low in his life, contributed to the end of his life. Foosball went bankrupt and directly effected my brother.

Really enjoying the series on various sports history that entered mainstream, but fell out of grace! As you've mentioned beforehand on the inline skating video, our generation is very nostalgic. Talking on sports from our childhood brings back fond memories of the good'ol days. Pogo sticks, yoyo's, scooters, the classics really bring a ring to it.

Hey jimmy nice video, I just wanted to comment on the fect that you are making less and less parkour related videos. Now it could be that you just don't know what else about parkour to talk about, or maybe you just aren't as interested in parkour anymore. No matter what I love the content and hope you keep up the amazing work, I'll see you next week.

We have one in our office and we had great times playing it even if only for 20 minutes a day :)

I'm at a $10,000 tournament as we speak...Lansing michigan

foosballer here, you did fantastic job mate

Very good story about the game I still love playing for over 50 yrs now. For me Foosball isnt dead, Foosball IS LIFE and not something I need to get paid for doing. That would just ruin it. We play 2 nights a week at #TGiFoosday gatherings at Pockets Billiards hall because we love playing the game. Granted it looks like a geriatric club meeting or a Grateful Dead reunion going on, until the balls hit the table and the youngsters playing pool start moving away to get clear of all the shooting going on. The tournament scene got me playing the game at a much higher level than I thought was possible when the Million Dollar tournament happened and I wanted to enter it, but enlisted in the Army 2 months before it happened and forgot all about Foosball until I got out in '92 and my younger brother took me to Pockets Billiards to show me the 1st Tornado Table in town expecting to kick my ass since I hadn't played in a long time. I had to remind him why I used to beat him at it, I was good and still was even though there 2 more men on the goalie bars now. It took him a few months to get a win on me and since we were playing alot, we got 2 different vendor leagues going so every bar in Idaho Falls had 2 teams per table they sponsored. This went on for 10 years or so with weekly DYP tournaments and puttered out finally around 2005 or 06. We went to Las Vegas in 2000 & 2004 for VIFA league finals and the Hall Of Fame Clasic tournaments that run consecutively back then. In 2000 after they had 114 New Tornado tables set up for the tournament next day (What a sight that was!), they announced there would be a DYP 2/3, 7 points match, double elimination tournament if enough people were intersted. Entry was $7.50 per person. They had to limit it to 3 different tournaments so they would be done by real tournament start time next day because there was so many people there early that wanted to play. I entered the 1st DYP and partnered with a Vegas local (Marty Braun) that was ranked as a Semipro then and didn't shoot the Snake Shot, but had a wicked power Pull Shot. I wasn't ranked at all. I played Goalie and we went undefeated to win it and $350 each. Best games of my life and still amazed at how well we synced together. I didn't shoot the snake shot either back then, but I am really good at blocking it and shooting from the back and 3 bar, no skills on the 5 bar enough to play the 3 bar much when I did play forward. This imbalance in my skills led to not lasting more than 2 days before being put out of every event I had entered and with my brother teammate for doubles. He hasn't forgiven me yet for using all my foos juice up before the tournament started. Now at 64 yrs old, I'd smoke the younger me easily even though I finally beat my cancer last summer after spending most of the summer before in the hospital thinking I was going to die and being told I would have a month, maybe, left to live because the Melanoma kept popping up and doctor couldn't cut any more off me to stop it. That's when I decided I wanted more Foosball still and prayed the chemotherapy they hoped would work on me did. Im still playing baby and better at it than ever before, even though it looks like they chopped my wings off my back with a chainsaw.😮 Im not dead, Foosball is not dead. Foosball IS LIFE. I've seen death and he doesn't want any of this. Got Game? No? Better get some....

that's super interesting, foosball was pretty much the precursor to esports. How do you come up with all these interesting video?

I never new that foosball even had pros I enjoy foosball but 20 grand over 10 years jeez

Every time I watch your videos it makes me feel so happy and motivated. Thank you for all of your content und your incredible Bucket list.

Thanx for the memories bro...me n my buds would travel all over the place to compete in tourneys....awsome times

Portugal has foosball for the drunk geezers since 1346 lol

Well, when you said you were doing something unexpected, you weren't wrong.

I play competition level foosball... Badly 😂... But I love it so much! That comment you made about it being a mix between boxing and chess sums it up perfectly 👌. I'm not even joking when I say some of the most fulfilling moments in my life have been behind the rods on a foosball table.

love these videos really interesting and casual

Jimmy, check out some 'Indoor League'. A programme from the 70's in England. They had foosball and a load of other obscure indoor/pub games. Classic shiz.

i love the direction this channel is going and your editing is getting great!

can you do a video on skateboarding that would be sick

Are you going to make more parkour videos? I’m not trying to pressure you into not making content you don’t like but I’m just wondering?

Here in Berlin you still find a table in every second to third bar :) But afaik nobody plays for money

I literally played Foosball with some friends today, so that's pretty funny! XDXDXD

Honestly I dislike pro foosball. Growing up it was fun just to hit the ball and hope it lands in a good spot. Pro foosball is just pass and then the stupid technique. How boring