Unlike Aipom catch, it is difficult to credit the Passimian game as the origin of sports, or even team sports, around the world, for many have ancestors plainly older than the discovery of Alola. Yet the Passimian sport is unique in being embraced, not as an element in or ancestor to many games, but in its entirety by humans.
It is rare for a human to equal Passimian in size or strength, although modern weight training (and, to frequent scandal, steroids) has to a degree reduced this gap. But Passimian, despite their large social groups and love of teamwork, are among the less intelligent apes. So as soon as curious humans ventured into Alola's forests to learn the rules of the Passimian game, they were valued as contributors to Passimian teams.
Passimian first embraced humans as coaches devising new tactics, often based on trickery – a role they knew well from pokemon battles. They also strove to convince their coaches to join in the game, some of whom excelled as players implementing human strategies on the fly. (Intriguingly, some fossil evidence seems to suggest that, before humans arrived in Alola, Oranguru played a similar role as tactician.)
Passimian are rare in Unova, and leagues for their game developed without actual Passimian; players instead play eleven a side, with humans in every role. Alola's leagues, on the other hand, typically contain a mixture of humans and Passimian, often with pairs of trainer and pokemon competing side by side. But one of the most popular festivals of the year, second in popularity to only the traditional Island Championship, is a game of Passimian against humans – which is, all things considered, typically a surprisingly close game!
