Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/641712
photography by raUL arboLEDa/aFp/gEtty ImagEs The ingredients: sneakers, a soccer ball… and a couple dozen inf latable "body bubbles." It may sound like a bad reality show, but Bubble Soccer is the newest rage in (weird) sports. The game? Soccer, as you know it—only that each player is encased from the knees up in a supersized inf latable ball. What started as a joke among Norwegian friends in 2011 is now a legitimate sensation Stateside: The National Association of Bubble Soccer recently made it to the finals in Shark Tank and heads up 39 leagues nationwide, while locally, Knockerball Chicago is expanding the sport's scope by organizing everything from birthday parties to corporate team-building events within a four-hour radius of their suburban Lombard headquarters. Says Knockerball Chicago CEO Joey Ricely of the sport's appeal, "The ability to defy gravity and let out this fun aggression and bump into people with no punish- ment or recourse—it's just a really good time." knockerballchicago.com . ContaCt Sport BuBBle soccer bounces onto the national stage. Players encased in their plastic "bubbles" enjoy an acrobatic five-on-five game of bubble soccer in Medellín, Colombia. Bubble soccer is played in more than 20 countries and has professional leagues around the world. 50 michiganavemag.com SCENE PLA Y