The Balloon World Cup begins on October 14 in Barcelona, Spain. It’s based on a game that Antonio Arredondo, 21, and Diego Arredondo, 18, have been playing for years with their younger sister Isabel.
When the COVID-19 lockdowns began, the siblings became completely immersed in the situation. Without knowing what to anticipate, Antonio released a TikTok video of them playing one day.
“It just continued rising and expanding until it reached almost 1.2 million likes. It was a film of my sister and I having fun, “Antonio said. “To this day, I’m baffled as to why so many people watch it.”
TikTok is a social networking site that allows users to upload films that are 15 seconds, 60 seconds, or three minutes long.
The Arredondos found their niche and continued to publish videos, garnering thousands of likes and even attracting ESPN’s SportsCenter’s attention.
The brothers claimed that one of their videos was utilized in a Mountain Dew commercial, and that sportscaster Joe Buck narrated one of their videos as if it were a sporting event.
Gerard Piqué of FC Barcelona and Ibai Llanos of Twitch devised a tournament-style world cup based on the Arredondos’ viral footage of their balloon game.
The winner will receive 10,000 euros, which is more than $11,500.
The playing area in Barcelona, according to Diego, will be designed to look like their living room, complete with obstacles that players must navigate in order to hit the balloon before it falls.
The battles become so heated at their parents’ house in Canby that they’ve knocked decorations off the wall and ruined a couch they used to jump over.
“A lot of the time, we’ll have to jump over the table, and we’ll use the sofa to propel ourselves, so our entire couch just kind of dips inwards.” Diego remarked.
