Football Too Mainstream For You? Give These 11 Obscure Sports A Shot

Drone Racing has only surfaced in the last couple of years, but promises to be the next NASCAR. Pilots race their insanely fast FPV Drones through lighted rings positioned around a pre-planned course, while wearing VR headsets that make them look like Cyclops from X-Men. The future is now.

As ridiculous as it might sound, Dogdancing has actually been around in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada and the UK for almost 30 years. Also known as competitive canine freestyle,  Dogdancing is a sport in which owners and their pups take to the floor in costume and perform coordinated song and dance routines for a panel of judges. No, I'm not kidding.

As a kid, I probably would've spared my sisters a lot of harassment had I known that there was an entire sport dedicated to beating on people with over-sized toilet paper rolls while wearing suits of armor made from cereal boxes. The Cardboard Tube Fighting League is adding competition to the age old practice of brandishing a paper towel roll like a sword.

If snowboarding and kitesurfing had an amorous lovechild it would probably look something like Snowkiting. Sure, there's always a chance that you might be whisked off a mountaintop by a stray gust of wind, but looking this cool is definitely worth the risk.

Truly a sport that could only be invented on a college campus, soon to be taking frat and sorority houses by storm, The Tour de Franzia is about as classy as the play on words in its name. The rules are simple. Competitors drink a healthy amount of the boxed wine Franzia and then ride a bike or tricycle around a course, downing an additional dose of booze with every lap. The real question is when is my gym going to start offering this as a class.

This sport requires a little more than a bicycle and a box of wine to get into, but what it lacks in accessibility it makes up for in sheer badassery. Every year, hobbyists from around the world gather in Delaware with homemade contraptions ranging from catapults to enormous air cannons, all built for one purpose: Launch a pumpkin as far as fucking possible.

Arguably the oddest coupling in the sports universe, chessboxing is exactly what it sounds like. Players compete in 11 alternating rounds of boxing and chess. After all, what better way to diffuse the tension of a chess match than by repeatedly socking your opponent in the face?

Why snowboard down a regular 'ol mountain when you can do basically the same thing but down the side of a freakin' volcano? I'd try this just for the badass factor you get from the name alone. "Oh yeah, me and my buddies? We're volcano boarders. No big deal."

Anyone looking to get more winter mileage out of their lakehouse will definitely want to check out iceboating. It's arguably the sleekest sport on this list, and you'll look like such a big shot as you glide past all the plebs who are still on ice skates.

So it's basically volleyball except players can't touch the ball with their arms. Oh, and the ball moves at speeds over 40 miles per hour.

Fans of Harry Potter will already be well-versed in the most popular sport in the wizarding world, but in the last few years, even muggles have started catching on to Quidditch. The only broomsticks involved are, sadly, grounded, but it's the closest all of us who never got our Hogwarts acceptance letters will get to the real thing.