One of the most talked about topics of the week has been the celebration of the first balloon world championship, a tournament in which the one who manages to keep one in the air for the longest time wins. Among 32 countries, the selection of Peru, and its president, Pedro Castillo Terrones (330,472 followers, that is, 5.6 million less than the organizer of the championship, the star of the networks Ibai Llanos) publicly celebrated it on his Twitter account: “I congratulate Francesco de La Cruz for this worthy representation of the country and make the name of Peru heard loudly in this world competition. Great, champion! #BalloonWorldCup ”.
I congratulate Francesco de la Cruz for this worthy representation of the country and making the name of Peru feel loud in this world competition. Great, champion! #BalloonWorldCup https://t.co/chseXTOJ41
– Pedro Castillo Terrones (@PedroCastilloTe) October 15, 2021
It seemed like a joke, but the broadcast, almost six hours from PortAventura, gathered more than 632,000 viewers in its “golden minute”, according to TVTOP; distributed 20,000 euros in prizes and had sponsors such as Volskwagen, focused on “an electrifying idea.”
At the beginning, Llanos commented: “Many people will be at home thinking, what am I doing seeing this bullshit? What Am I doing with my life?”. He was right, but purely surreal, the broadcast was absolutely hypnotic. The world of balloons confirmed him as king of the networks. Llanos showed that he can do, literally, whatever comes to mind, or, in other words, that hundreds of thousands of people are going to want to see anything that comes to mind.
“Don’t worry because not only are you watching it, there are more world champions watching this, like Marc Márquez,” Llanos encouraged the audience. And there was, indeed, Márquez, commenting on the tournament in direct connection at the direction of the footballer Gerard Piqué, an accomplice in the organization of the competition. “There are people who have come from the US It’s scary. Goosebumps, “said the Barcelona player while his wife, Shakira, posted a video on social media to promote it.
It seemed like a joke, but the organizers took it very seriously. Before each two-minute game, the anthem of each participating country sounded. There was an “official ball” —of course, a balloon—; Referees —one for tennis, another for field hockey and another for soccer, Rafa Guerrero, Mejuto González’s assistant on the day of the mythical “Rafa, don’t fuck with me”. Penalty and expulsion. There was VAR – “the eye of the globe”, 11 cameras -; specialized commentators saying things like: “The Mongolian player leaning well on the crystals, but this is not good for Mexico”; “The little left is good”; “Point for Georgia”; “What a show!”. And there was a trophy: the golden globe.
It all started at the end of August, when Llanos discovered a video of two kids playing not to drop a balloon, and announced on Twitter: “I want to buy the rights to this and set up a World Cup.” His viralized wish came true on Thursday and sparked hundreds of memes, like one of Florentino Pérez saying: “Cancel the Super League. I want balloons ”.
The World Cup account, opened on Twitter last September, has nearly 160,000 followers. Llanos has almost six million, and Piqué, more than 20. With that power, he became trending topic a very bewildered Roberto Gómez, a journalist who, at the I Congress of sports communication in the face of the new challenges of the 21st century, also held this week, dared to say: “I am amazed at Ibai. I do not know who it is and in this congress it is the most pronounced word! But who understands this?
It’s hard to understand, but it’s happening. Spain is officially divided into three: those who do not know who Ibai is, those who do not know who Roberto Gómez is and those who do not know who neither of them is and live – they do – in the old normality.