Roller Derby

Roller derby first appeared in 1935 in Chicago, as a marathon skating event invented by Leo Seltzer; it was taken on the road later that year as the “Transcontinental Roller Marathon.” By 1937, the skating marathon morphed into a team sport consisting of coed teams and is considered the first sport where women and men played by the same rules.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, roller derby was televised and many participants made a career out of this sport. But by the mid-1970s, roller derby began to lose its popularity and was no longer televised, and many of the professional leagues were dissolved.

Today roller derby is primarily an amateur sport, although there are several professional leagues as well, and currently there are two types of ...