The Balloon World Cup is one of the funniest and most entertaining sports events in the world. The concept is simple, two participants play a game of keep-up with a balloon, a game most of us have certainly played, but this one takes place in a room full of obstacles. Throughout the event, room furnishings are always changing, making it even more entertaining to watch, and forcing the participants to change their strategies. Until the final, all games have a duration of 2 minutes, with the grand final having a 5 minute duration.
Participants can only touch the balloon with their hands, otherwise, it's a point for their opponent. It’s similar to football but in a reverse way, unless you have played as a goalkeeper, which could come in handy in a tournament like this one. They have to always touch the balloon so it goes in an upwards trajectory, and the main goal of the match is for the balloon to touch the ground. If the opponent is unable to prevent the balloon from touching the ground, then the other player wins a point.
The first edition of the event was organized by streaming megastar ibai, and football star Gerard Piqué. Ibai got the idea to organize this event after watching a video of siblings Antonio, Diego, and Isabel Redondo, playing a game of keep-up with a balloon. The whole event was broadcasted by ibai, and he also invited several panelists from one of the most popular football shows in Spain “El chiringuito de Jugones”, to be part of the event staff. This year it’s once again ibai who is organizing the event, but its qualifiers are being hosted by other Hispanic streamers: in case of LATAM it was coscu.
Last year's edition of the event was a huge success, with 632K Peak Viewers, and 518K Average Viewers, so it’s no surprise to see its second edition coming the year after. This time the Ballon World Cup will have four qualifiers to choose the best players from all over the world. Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Asia are the regions where these qualifiers will take place. We don't know the specified date of the European, United States, and Asian qualifiers, but they will happen in September.
The Latin America qualifier has already taken palace, and we had qualifiers for five different countries. These countries were Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. One winner from each of the qualifiers was selected. These players will all be attending the Balloon World Cup, which will take place in Spain, in October.
In order to be able to participate in the Latin America qualifiers, the players needed to do a TikTok challenge, where they had to show their prowess with a balloon, which is actually harder than expected. Then, eight people from the five respective countries listed above qualified for the event, which was held in Buenos Aires. It’s expected the other qualifiers will follow the same format.
From Brazil, Claudio Lassage was the winner, while Luis Gerardo Ortega won the Mexican qualifier. Jorge ALba Ortiz won the Colombian qualifier, Lautaro Channame the Argentina one, and Gabriela Amaro Salazar was the winner from Chile.
Viewership Stats
The Latin American qualifiers were broadcasted by popular Twitch streamer coscu, who also hosted the event. The Latin America Balloon World Cup qualifiers were only streamed on Twitch on two separate days, with the final of all the qualifiers happening on day two. The event was also only streamed in Spanish.
The event was broadcasted for 9 hours, and coscu viewers watched the stream for 169K hours. It had 18K Average Viewers, and 32K Peak Viewers. On average, every viewer watched the broadcast for 45 minutes. The event had 15K Active Chatters, and viewers were very engaged with the stream, as they sent 119K messages throughout the two days of the event. This qualifier also managed to attract the interest of some new viewers, as the event had 223K unique viewers.
It was the first day of the event which was the most popular one. Despite ibai hosting the second day with 23K Viewers, the first day was still the most popular one, and part of that is because the viewers that came from watching ibai didn't stay in the stream for long. The viewership number went quickly from 27K viewers, after ibai host, to 15K viewers. Meaning most of the viewers that came from ibai host weren't really interested in the qualifiers: probably the majority are waiting for the finals which are sure to attract way more people to the broadcast.
Overall, the event was a success, managing to have some good viewership numbers, and having a total of 1 million live views. A lot of funny moments happened throughout the whole event which made the stream even more entertaining to watch. The casters also did a great job promoting the importance of every single game, and keeping the viewers even more involved in the action. It was an event that sets a very good precedent for the upcoming qualifiers of the Balloon World Cup.
Header: Marca
