Roller Derby

Roller derby is an amateur, competitive, contact sport that has experienced a revival within the past 10 years in the United States and abroad. The Women's Flat Track Derby Association notes that there are currently 156 full-member leagues and 58 apprentice leagues worldwide. The sport is heavily dominated by women, although leagues for men and youth exist as well.

Derby skaters utilize quad roller skates, specially formulated wheels, helmets, mouth guards, and elbow-, wrist-, and kneepads. Today, the vast majority of roller derby is played on oval-shaped flat tracks. During a bout (game), two teams compete for points, and the team with the most points at the end of the game wins. Each bout consists of two 30-minute periods; each period is made up of an indeterminate number of jams (as jams can last anywhere from a few seconds to 2 minutes). At the beginning of a new jam, each team sends out a lineup consisting of one “jammer,” three “blockers,” and a “pivot.” Blockers and pivots from both teams constitute “the pack.” To score points, jammers make an initial pass through the pack and then collect one point for every opposing skater they pass legally during subsequent passes. Blockers hip check and booty block opposing skaters while providing assists in the form of whips and pushes to their own jammer. After two minutes of play or after the lead jammer (the first jammer to break through the pack legally) calls off the jam, a new lineup of skaters are sent onto the track.

Until recently, the sport was most notably associated with over-the-top theatrics and premeditated scripts reminiscent of professional wrestling; such antics were commonly used as marketing ploys for televised roller derbies of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, participants challenge the misconception that bouts are staged or faked by emphasizing derby's legitimacy as a “real” sport, and their own legitimacy as “real” athletes. Skaters highlight how derby incorporates aggressive physical contact, fierce competition, offensive and defensive strategies, strength, and speed. Skaters also talk of the countless hours spent training and conditioning, describe injuries they have both dealt and endured, and trade insider knowledge regarding the merits of various wheels, skate setups, and track surfaces.

Most research on roller derby focuses on the do-it-yourself nature of the sport, the potential for women's gender transgression within the sport, and players' violations of traditional appearance norms. Similar to music subcultures, roller derby leagues are do-it-yourself grassroots organizations run “by the skaters, for the skaters.” League members do more than just skate; they donate their time as board members, captains, trainers, accountants, and committee heads. This collective labor ensures that skaters retain control over their leagues, their organizations, their bodies, and the sport of roller derby itself. In this way, skaters actively create and maintain derby as a female-dominated, nonconventional sport subculture, thereby challenging the exclusion of women from most subcultural spaces.

This commitment to independence has prompted the emergence of underground economies within roller derby communities. Skaters, volunteers, and fans support these underground economies by purchasing skates, gear, clothing, accessories, art, and services (e.g., photography and web design) from “skater owned and operated” businesses. Derby leagues are not managed by large sport corporations, thereby making it easier to resist commercialization. The revenue generated from fund-raisers, the sale of bout tickets, and skaters' monthly dues goes directly toward paying training facility rental fees, advertising and marketing costs, travel stipends for away games, and bout production overheads. Additionally, most leagues are nonprofit [Page 604]and donate portions of their proceeds to local, charitable organizations.

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