The Balloon World Cup: A Surprising Success
The Balloon World Cup, organized by FC Barcelona and hosted by popular streamer Ibai and pro soccer player Gerard Piqué, has taken the world by storm. This informal balloon-centered sport has captured the attention of viewers and garnered a massive amount of viewership. If you’ve ever played Balloon Keep-up, where you try to keep a balloon in the air using your hands or feet, you’ve participated in this sport.
The event, which took place in Tarragona, Spain on Oct. 14, drew in a live audience and achieved astounding numbers on Twitch. It garnered over eight million total views and reached a peak of 632,000 concurrent viewers, according to the viewership-tracking site Esports Charts.
The Balloon World Cup featured 32 teams representing their respective nations. The finals saw a match between Peru’s Francisco De La Cruz and Germany’s Jan Spiess. In a 6-2 scoreline, Francisco De La Cruz emerged as the first Balloon World Cup champion from Peru.
The game gained popularity on Twitch thanks to Diego and Antonio Arredondo, the representatives from the United States. Their TikTok videos of them playing Balloon Keep-up in their living room soon became a sensation on Twitch.
All the games took place in a replica of a typical living room, complete with different environments and furniture acting as obstacles or parkour platforms. In the finals, even a small Volkswagen car was placed in the center of the playing arena.
Balloon Keep-up only has two simple rules: you can’t hinder your opponents’ movement or their ability to hit the balloon, and you have to make contact with the balloon in a way that sends it upwards, not downwards.
The tremendous success of the Balloon World Cup rivaled the viewership and excitement of long-standing esports events like TI10 and Worlds 2021. While there’s no news yet on whether there will be another Balloon Keep-up event in the near future, the success of the inaugural World Cup may inspire future competitions.