You love sports, you must if you read this website, but do you love sports enough to help fund someone else’s love of a sport? I don’t, but some people out there do and they have actually used this website called Kickstarter to help fund their sports related business ventures. The kick in kickstarter is that a lot of these never actually get funded.

You see, the website is a way for start-up projects to get instant funding, be they movies, books, bars, breweries, t-shirts, whatever, anything you can think of. If you have an idea and it needs funding then you can possibly get that funding on Kickstarter.

The thing is, if you do not achieve your goal funding level, you get none of the money. Thus, there are a ton of sports related items on there that were left unfunded and we at the Deuce feel that it is our duty to show you, the consumers, just what you missed out on.

We’ve gone through the sports related Kickstarters and hand picked our favorite sports related things that never got funded but should have…at least in our warped minds.

1) Flying Bird Hats

Who wants this product?  This guy, that’s who. Sadly, these poor saps only got 2 backers who donated a total of $90 towards their goal of $8,500…and really, who can blame them, these things are atrocious. Just look at this one:

That is downright frightening. It bares a shocking resemblance to a piece of roadkill that has been affixed to a cap with a hot glue gun. Yeeeeuuck.  Not getting funded on one website has not deterred this entrepreneur however, you can still pick up your Flyingbirdhat at Flyingbirdhat.com.

On the one hand, I hope that someone makes this a trend. I think I would get a huge kick out of being the website that started the Flyingbirdhat trend across the nation.

On the other hand, some hipster, somewhere, has looked at this post and has already decided that this cap will be sufficiently ironic and it will be on his head in 2-4 weeks, depending on shipping times, and I shiver at the thought of unleashing this upon the denizens of Brooklyn. They have suffered enough in recent years.

2) Bendercup: An Outdoor Disc Game

If anything was crying out for a “New Sport” blog post, this would’ve been it…if it actually got made, which it didn’t.  What you see above is Bendercup and here are the rules of Bendercup:

Bendercup is played with a disc, four poles and four cups. Points are awarded when one team hits their opponents’ pole with the disc. The opponents have the opportunity to negate points by catching the thrown disc and the cup that is launched off the struck pole.

Sounds lame, but somewhat viable, yes? Perhaps one day it could be a new sport, but it apparently needs to have TWENTY TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS to get off the ground. Do you see that picture?  It is a game involving a frisbee, four cones and a bunch of sticks.  You need $22,500 bucks to get this off the ground?  I think we see what the problem was here.

Not to mention this is essentially low-rent backyard cricket. Maybe they can invent knock-off low-rent backyard basketball and call it “Nettyball” or something. Better luck next time guys.

3) Exoear: Wearable Head-Free Audio

Or, as I like to call it, “Sweaty Neck-Speakers”. Shocker that this idea never got kickstarted. When I’m running around outside, getting all sweaty and sticky, I know for a fact that I want a hunk of plastic on my neck making me even hotter.

Even moreso, whenever I am blasting, say, the a new High on Fire album while running, I KNOW EVERYONE ELSE IN MY PATH WANTS TO HEAR IT.

The Exoear is a headphone that you wear on your shoulders, behind your neck, that has two speakers on it directed up at your ears and a microphone in it, just in case you wanted to hook your cell phone up to it.

This product is one of the least necessary innovations in personal speaker technology ever. When I am exercising, I want as little on me as possible.  I wear a shirt because no one wants to see my flab flying everywhere, shorts because society tells me to, shoes because I dont want glass in my foot and little tiny sweatproof earbud headphones because anything more is unbearable. If I could afford wireless earbuds that would be even better because those cords annoy the hell out of me.

I digress. Wanna guess how much money they needed to get started making the essential sportswear product that you wish you could own?  $146,000. You read that correctly. I am stunned it never got off the ground but surely someone could want this…just not me. I am way to sweaty for this. I mean, I am sweating right now typing this.

4) Rip Away Board Shorts Sold By A Former Real World Cast Member

Look!  Its Alton from Real World Las Vegas! Now we can all tell Bill Simmons what Alton is up to so he can add him to his next Reality TV Fantasy League where they look at how former reality tv “stars” are doing after their shows have run their course. Starting your own business has got to be up there among the most productive…even if it only got $20 worth of funding.

If you want to see how it works, click on over to Alton’s Youtube demonstration.

Surprisingly, this product isn’t all that horrible, its just that it is Alton from the first Real World Las Vegas, one of the craziest Real World seasons ever, selling the product. I don’t think I want to buy anything that could have touched any part of that man unless it has been washed in Penicillin and then doused with UV rays.

I’m not sure if these pants will really work, especially if you’re named Mandingo, but if you’re named Mandingo, you’re probably not too worried about changing board shorts in front of people…but the idea is an interesting one. I can see Quicksilver swooping in and stealing this idea in no time, actually.

5) Drink Coaster Sports League’s “Knock Out Boxing”

This is a “game” that uses two coasters and is for two players, typically sitting in a bar waiting for their drinks…and I’m not exactly sure how it is fun at all.

One player has the puncher coaster and the other has the blocker coaster. The puncher chooes a punch on the card and doesn’t show the blocker, and is supposed to put his thumb on the spot where he has chosen his punch. The blocker does the same with his card, only for blocking. They then lay the two cards on top of each other, lining up the spots on the cards where their thumbs were and BOOM someone gets punched or someone dodges. Typically if you get hit I guess you buy a drink.

That, to me, sounds like no fun whatsoever and I’m guessing a lot of people agreed with me since this hardly got any funding on the site. The hiding your thumb on the card and keeping it there without moving it while placing it on the table sounds like too much work. Here’s how I would fix it. I’d rather it just be random dumb luck.

Make one coaster spin on top of the other coaster and just let lady luck decide who gets hit and who dodges. There’s hardly any skill involved in the game anyway, just let me spin it and see what happens. I’ve had fun just betting beers on a coin flip before, I could definitely see myself enjoying spinning this thing while getting drunk.

No wonder he only got $45 of his $8,000 goal…too much work to be a fun drinking game. If, however, you disagree with me, pre-order your set here.

6) Warriors of Light, Champions of Laser Tag

I might’ve saved the best for last. Sadly for this movie, unless it is a mockumentary starring Danny McBride, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, the cast of Spinal Tap, Fred Willard and Christopher Walken (just because I love Walken, that man can do no wrong…generally) this movie will probably never, ever be made and it really is our loss.

Don’t think you won’t laugh at it because it isn’t a mockumentary, however. I urge you to click the link and check out the trailer just for the comedy gold that is the man pictured, in action, above. He is about to leap in the air and you should not miss it.

If you haven’t already figured it out already, its a documentary about the largest Laser Tag Championship in the world and the drama that ensues from the small community of die-hard Laser Taggers that keep the “sport” alive…BUT PERHAPS FOR NOT MUCH LONGER.

What a teaser huh?  Well the reason it might not be around much longer is that apparently the league, like this movie, has run into some money problems…mostly because no one gives a damn about Laser Tag.

Although, I have seen documentaries about Donkey Kong and Air Guitar and thoroughly enjoyed them both, I’ve got to draw the line here with Laser Tag. No more movies like this after this Laser Tag movie.

Next someone will want to make a documentary about Pogs championships. There’s only so much retro-kitsch-documentary-style-movie-that-mocks-its-subjects-while-pretending-to-just-document-them-movie that I can take. I don’t the genre ruined for me yet.

Really, you should click the link…maybe its not too late to get this movie funded somehow…they only need $12,000. I would totally pay to see a movie about that dude who is holding the gun over his head gangsta style and is about to leap in the air and do a spin.

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