First there was the crazy inflatable ball, filled with some water, that you roll around inside typically down a hill, called Zorbing. Now, there is a new form of indoor bubble football from Bubble Sports Scotland that is developing a wave of interest from social channels like YouTube.
The basis of the game is not so different to regular football except that all the players are inside their own large inflatable ball. The ball does act as a protection against fouls and injuries that can occur on the pitch which is good news.
Players try to run around the indoor pitch inside their inflated balls, often bouncing around the pitch more than they are running around it, in order to try to score a goal. This is easier said than done because, remember, we said that all players have their own protective bubble. So the goal-keepers are similarly protected and their inflated ball covers most of the open goal making it damn hard to score with Bubble Sports!
The initial spark of interest to make this a business first came up for co-owner Jak Carlin when he saw bubble football being played on a clip on social tube channel, YouTube. He and his business partner tried to find something similar somewhere in Edinburgh, and then around Scotland, but couldn’t find this being offered anywhere.
Trying to buy the equipment proven expensive as it wasn’t something locally sourced. Instead, the founders located the inflatable bubbles over in China and imported them. His partner came in with extra funding to pay for the initial purchases. They played their first game and posted a video on YouTube. Many comments and over 10,000 views later, the team has a small hit on their hands.