The name "over-the-line" is a registered trademark of the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club (OMBAC) of San Diego, California, which organizes an annual tournament that is one of the city's largest summer social events.
An over-the-line court is normally made up on a beach and comprises a triangle and an open-ended rectangle marked by ropes or lines in the sand.
The scoring system is as follows: Over-the-line was first played in Mission Beach in San Diego, California, in the 1950s[2] and continues to thrive in the area.
It is seen largely as a novelty game in the inland counties (and, debatably, the beach counties as well), but still persists as a physical education activity at local high schools, and most visibly in the practice of an annual tournament held on Fiesta Island.
By far the locale's most notorious activity, the annual "OMBAC World Championship Over The Line Tournament", organized by Old Mission Beach Athletic Club, is a prominent event in San Diego's beach sports life.
Despite its infamous reputation, however, the game has grown in popularity among the San Diego populace and governing bodies over the years, even surpassing about 60,000 spectators over the two July weekends the annual tournament was hosted in 2011.
To help highlight the sport rather than the spectacle and encourage more family-friendly participation, OMBAC has made strides to cut back on these and some of the tournament's other, more offensive, elements by de-emphasizing slogans such as "beer, babes, and bats on the beach."