An Exy court is 60 yards wide x 100 yards long x 10 yards tall (in meters, roughly 55 x 91 x 9). It is completely enclosed by a half-inch thick plexiglass wall: primarily for rebounds and passing, but also to protect the audience from being struck by the ball. Both Home and Away have doors to allow players on and off that bolt on the outside. These doors must not be open when the ball is in play.

The court is divided into fourths by three lines: first-court (near the Home goal), half-court, and far-court (near the Away goal). Penalty shots are taken from marked spots halfway between first-court/far-court and the Home/Away goal, respectively.

The Exy goals are on either end of the court. The actual goal is a 3 x 7 yard (2.7 x 6.4 meter) section on the wall outlined by a bold line. The goalkeeper's territory is the 3 x 7 area on the ground directly in front of the goal, also marked by a line. Players are not allowed to cross the goal line. The boxed-in area of the goal wall is laden with sensors. When a ball strikes inside the goal the wall will light up red. A ball that hits the goal's border itself does not count. Each goal counts as one point.

The objective of the game is to out-score one's opponents.

The Teams

There are four positions: striker, dealer, backliner, and goalkeeper.

- The striker is offense and plays to score
-- Strikers start the game on the half-court line. The strikers on the serving team start on the inside; strikers for the defending team are on the outside.

- The dealer serves and is thereafter the middleman; dealers have the option to specialize as offense or defense and can play as an extra striker or backliner depending on how the game is going
-- Dealers start on the first/far-court lines.

- The backliner is defense and protects the goal
-- Backliners start on the first/far-court lines.

- The goalkeeper guards the goal

Six players per team are allowed on the court at a time. Generally speaking, this allows for two strikers, a dealer, two backliners, and the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper is an optional position, however; a manager may sacrifice the goal for an extra player under certain circumstances.

The minimum size for an NCAA team is currently nine players. In theory this allows for six on-court players and a sub for each position save goalkeeper. After recent events this rule is under review and posited to increase to twelve.

Equipment

Racquet
- Net depth varies by position. Dealers have the deepest nets so they can more easily carry the ball between offense and defense. Striker racquets are a bit shallower, still allowing them time to line up a perfect shot. Backliner racquets have just a little give, as backliners are strongly discouraged from carrying the ball; the longer a ball is near the goal the higher the chance an opposing striker can take possession of it. Goalkeeper racquets are flat. They are also the largest of the racquets, with a head that measures 1.5 x 2 feet.

- Goalkeeper racquets are also the longest allowed on court, with a shaft that tops out at 4 feet. Racquets for every other position have a range of 30-45 inches based on player height and preference. Racquet weights are also negotiable, as are the materials allowed in the construction. Generally speaking, offense racquets are made of aluminum (for lighter carry and more control), and heavy defense racquets are made of wood (for more power and force in challenges).

Ball
- Roughly the size of a fist and weighted for rebounds

Helmet
- Required to be worn on the court at all times unless instructed otherwise by an official or unless the game is not in session. A visor goes in front of the eyes to allow a protected but unobstructed view of the court; grating protects the face from the nose down.

Armor
- Chest and shoulder padding, neck guard, shin guards, arm guards, and armored gloves to protect the players' fingers. Optional: bandannas to keep hair out of one's face, armor to wear over one's thighs under one's shorts, and mouth guards (to prevent accidental injury during collisions)

Basic Rules

1. Off-sides is in effect on Exy courts. Meaning: an offense player who does not have possession of the ball, or who is moving to take possession of the ball, must have an opposing defense player between him or herself and the opposing goalkeeper at all times. This prevents strikers from waiting near the goal to score. The penalty for off-sides is loss of possession and a reset to the half-court line.

2. Body checks are allowed against players who have reasonable possession of the ball: that is, who currently have it, who have just relinquished it, or who are within a moment of receiving it. The player who currently has possession of the ball may body-check any other player with no restrictions. A faulty body check results in loss of possession and a reset to the next-closest court line.

3. Any other form of fighting is prohibited and will result in a card. The severity decides whether the card is yellow or red; it also determines whether a team deserves a penalty shot or a simple loss in possession. Games are restarted from where play was halted; the exact spot will be decided on by the residing referee. No other player may stand within ten feet of the dealer during a mid-play serve.

4. "Stick checks" are allowed only between racquets. A player who strikes another player's body with his or her racquet will be carded and the opposing team will receive a penalty shot. This includes using one's racquet to trip another player. A stick check against another player's helmet is an immediate red card and earns the wounded team a penalty shot on goal.

5. Balls may only be carried for 10 steps, at which point they must be passed. Acceptable passes are to a teammate, to oneself via a rebound, or a shot on goal.

6. One yellow card is a warning. Two result in the player sitting out the remainder of the game. A player who is red-carded is immediately expelled from the ongoing game and must sit out of the next one as well.

7. Exy games for youths and high schoolers require four referees at minimum. From the NCAA level upward six are required, three to either side of the court.

8. Goalkeepers are the only players allowed to touch the ball with their hands. Players cannot catch, kick, or otherwise interfere with the ball unless using their racquets. Violation of this is a stop-play and switch of possession.

Tetsuji Moriyama and Kayleigh Day met while studying sports management abroad at Fukui University (from University of Connecticut and University College in Dublin, respectively). Exy began as a lark: first an idea, then a class project wherein they recruited classmates and friends to be guinea pigs, and then spreading to after-school teams when they interested enough people.

Exy spread slowly but surely in the Chūbu region as friends and family carried it from one university to another. The first big boom came when it went online. Yoko Sanada, the sport’s first goalkeeper, designed a website and uploaded videos of games. Tetsuji and Kayleigh released an official rules and guidelines book in Japan around the same time. The second burst came when it caught the attention of a local mangaka, who received permission from Tetsuji and Kayleigh to publish a short serialized manga highlighting it.

Exy made its way overseas through online scanlation groups. The first attempts to start teams in the United States were rough: small groups of friends trying to cobble the rules together from translated websites who were making do with whatever gear and stand-in courts they could find. For a while the only Exy racquets could be imported from a company in Japan, so most early players substituted lacrosse sticks when they could. Tetsuji and Kayleigh noticed the growing attention and translated their guidebook to English.

Kayleigh and Tetsuji trained some of their original players to be coaches and designated them local experts, then returned home. Kayleigh scaled back to a part-time student so she could try to introduce Exy to Europe. Tetsuji kept his course load but devoted his evenings and weekends to fundraising and generating interest. He spent his summers recruiting and training and secured funding to bring Exy gear to the United States. He built the first pop-up court at a local recreation center and paid for the Plexiglass walls with his family’s money.

Exy started as street teams, moved into local recreation centers, and slowly made its way into high schools. Bigger universities offered it as a club sport, but no college was yet willing or able to spend time and money on building a full-sized stadium. As Exy spread Tetsuji applied to start the ERC, the Exy Rules and Regulations Committee, so the sport could have official representatives and regulators. He hired two retired referees to help him.

During his last semester Tetsuji reached out to the NCAA, offering himself as a coach and promising the funding for a stadium if they would sign the contracts and take on another collegiate team. In the end he signed with Edgar Allen University in West Virginia. As soon as it was official he reached out again with a challenge to build the first Exy court in America.

No one had missed the enthusiasm for Exy, but the price for a university-sized stadium was astronomical and returns on the investment weren’t a guarantee. In the end only two schools backed Tetsuji: University of Southern California and Pennsylvania State. They recruited coaches from the best of the high school teams and started to build.

Fundraising was a wide scale effort. Street teams, recreation teams, and school teams did local projects and donated their money up the chain. The universities and their new coaches reached out to alumni and contacts in every field. Tetsuji found the biggest supporters when he turned to professional women athletes. He promised them he was bringing a co-ed sport to the national level. When the women got behind it, so did the real money, and Tetsuji had his stadiums.

Castle Evermore was the first stadium completed, with USC’s Trojan Court not far behind it. Pride Court at Penn State experienced delays but the coach continued training and building his team in the meantime. Other universities with established Exy clubs but no stadiums applied to have their teams recognized as NCAA teams. The ERC made a full inspection of club teams, gave feedback on what needed to change to be recognized as a collegiate team, and signed off on twenty-eight other teams.

NCAA Exy officially started the following fall semester. The first game of the season was between the Trojans and Ravens at Castle Evermore, and the Ravens won 13-12. The Trojans, Ravens, and Lions played primarily home games that year so the teams with pop-up courts could visit and play on a real court. By the time the year ended, seven other universities had started progress on stadiums. As the number of teams and stadiums increased, the ERC took steps to break the country into manageable pieces: first by creating four districts, then breaking the teams up by Class I and Class II based on skill. There was some small controversy when Edgar Allen was accepted into the northern district instead of the southeast, but Tetsuji won the argument rather quickly.

The first professional teams were formed around the graduates of the first university teams. Two years later the national team, the US Court, was born. The following year Exy made its first appearance at the Olympics, where Japan took home the gold.