Bellringer (an alternative version of soccer, for cricket grounds and baseball stadiums)

There are 11 sports stadiums in the world with a capacity of over 100,000, according to Wikipedia. Eight of these are American college football stadiums. Two, including the largest stadium of all, are cricket grounds. Narendra Modi Stadium in Gujarat, India can seat up to 132,000 fans as of 2020. The Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia can seat about 100,000 fans. (The other 100,000-plus-capacity stadium, the second largest in the world, is in Pyongyang, North Korea, built during Kim Il Sung’s reign in 1989).

In the US, the largest cricket ground is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a capacity of 20,000. But with the South Asian and Caribbean communities growing, there are ambitious plans for more American cricket grounds to be built. The US Major League Cricket league is expected to debut in 2023, initially with six teams. In addition to building new venues, there are also plans to turn a 6,000-fan-capacity baseball stadium in Dallas (previously used by the defunct Texas AirHogs baseball team) into a cricket venue. In California, there are plans to build a 15,000-fan-capacity cricket stadium in Santa Clara.

Here, then, is another sport that you could play in a cricket stadium:

Rules of Bellringer:

– A bell sits atop a 12-foot-high pole in the middle of a circular field
– Players on both teams score goals by hitting the bell with a soccer ball
– No player can touch the ball with their hands
– The field is made up of concentric circles. A goal scored from the innermost circle is worth 1 point. From the next circle out is worth 2 points. Then 3 points, etc. etc.
– If an opposing players’ shot deflects off of you and hits the bell, it is their goal, not yours. If however you purposefully hit an opposing players’ shot out of the air and directly into the bell, it is your goal.
– You do not have to ‘clear the ball back out’ (to use a term from pickup basketball) upon intercepting the ball from the opposing team. You can immediately take the ball and attempt to score a goal yourself
– After a goal is scored, the opposing team gains possession of the ball. They start with the ball in the 4-point circle
– Overtime is sudden death, college-football-style. For example, if your team has the ball first and scores a 2 point goal, the other team then gets the ball and must score either a 2 point goal (to go on to a second OT round) or a >2 point goal (to win)
– The other specifics – penalties, free kicks, the number of players per team, substitutions, the dimensions of each point zone and the field as a whole, the height and size and shape of the bell, etc. – can be decided upon by each Bellringer league

You can also play ultimate frisbee bellringer, or (with the proper rollerblading surface) rollerblade ultimate frisbee bellringer. You can also suspend the bell from the ceiling on a really, really long rope, instead of putting it on top of a pole.