A failed jersey flight stunt: "Deadpool's" football marketing flop

By Han Bing What is the best way to "raise" a football club's profile? For Colombia's Bogota International Club, it was literally to "raise" it. On January 27, the club launched a jersey to 35,000 meters above the ground with a high-altitude balloon. The balloon was equipped with HD cameras and GPS devices that recorded every second of the jersey's ascent. The video was posted on the club's official social media accounts with the caption, "Our jersey flew to the stratosphere; we are the first South American football club to send a jersey into space."

However, this "raising" marketing video to boost the club's fame did not perform well. Within 12 hours of posting, it only received over 5,000 likes and just over 100 comments. The club's marketing team thought their creative idea would trigger massive attention but ended up embarrassing themselves. They were not the first football club in the world, nor even in South America, to send a jersey into space.

As early as January 31, 2013, Brazil's São Paulo had already sent their club jersey to about 9,000 meters (30,000 feet) using a weather balloon. Additionally, England's Wolverhampton Wanderers, Italy's Roma, and Major League Soccer's LA Galaxy have done similar stunts. On August 1, 2017, Roma legend Totti's signed jersey was sealed in a vacuum capsule and launched into space aboard Avio's "Vega" rocket from the French Guiana launch site. Totti's jersey reached an altitude of 300-500 kilometers, far surpassing Bogota International's jersey height.

Fans have done similar things even earlier: during the 2002 World Cup, a Costa Rican-born astronaut brought Costa Rica’s number 25 jersey aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, wearing it inside the shuttle at 100,000 meters altitude to celebrate Costa Rica's World Cup qualification. For the 2010 South Africa World Cup, Spanish fans also sent David Villa’s number 7 jersey tens of thousands of meters into space with a weather balloon to celebrate Spain reaching the final.

On November 21 last year, ahead of the Copa Sudamericana final, CONMEBOL sent the Copa Sudamericana trophy, match ball, and advertising boards featuring the finalists Lanús and Atlético Mineiro badges into space with a weather balloon and successfully retrieved them. Their marketing message was that the winner would lift the championship trophy that had "traveled to space."

Bogota International’s blunder in raising its profile stems from the North American consortium that acquired the club late last year. Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds, Mike McHenry, Eva Longoria, MLB star Will Venable and his model wife Kate Upton were involved. The club acquired was CD La Equidad, founded in 1982. On December 10, the new owners unveiled the club’s new name, Bogota International, along with a new badge and freshly designed jerseys.

Notably, Reynolds and McHenry previously acquired the English lower-tier club Wrexham, achieving great success through documentary filming and social media short videos. The idea behind this "raising" marketing campaign reportedly came from Reynolds. However, this time, Reynolds, known for playing “Deadpool,” miscalculated, as this unoriginal stunt failed to gain broad recognition from fans and media.

In fact, in June 2017, Wolverhampton Wanderers’ marketing campaign to celebrate their Premier League return by sending the new season jersey into space via weather balloon was already criticized as "over the top." The UK’s Daily Telegraph pointed out that the promotional video was undermined by low-cost equipment (the jersey was wrapped around a simple plastic model) and a poor launch location (an ordinary suburban park). Wolves claimed the jersey reached 36,700 meters, higher than Bogota International’s, but where the jersey landed remains unknown, making the campaign seem half-hearted. Clearly, boosting a club’s profile is not as simple as flying a jersey higher.