Wolves reach for the stars - literally - as they launch new kit
Championship side raise the bar for merchandising and send a football shirt to the edge of space
Wolves have quite literally launched their new home kit for next season, sending a shirt into near-Earth orbit on a weather balloon.
Modern football kit launches are known for being "overblown, overengineered affairs", but the Wolves stunt has raised the bar, says the Daily Telegraph, eclipsing the usual gimmick of releasing a heavily photoshopped picture of players looking heroic.
Footage of the shirt drifting skywards appeared on YouTube and while the effect is impressive, the Telegraph is rather underwhelmed by the "worryingly low-budget equipment" used and the choice of launch site - a humble suburban park.
After leaving the ground, the new top "rose through the Black Country clouds on its way to the heavens", says the paper. "Finally, clear of UK airspace and any attempts from West Brom's missile defence system to shoot it down, the gold-and-black affair made it to the edge of space."
It is unclear where the shirt landed, but "Wolves claim [it] reached an altitude of 36,700 metres - more than 20 miles above the earth's surface", reports the Express & Star.
Back on solid ground, the Birmingham Mail punctures the club's balloon slightly by reporting that reaction to the new Ouma design has been "mixed", with many fans voicing their opinions on Twitter.
And while the club's marketing department might be shooting for the stars, the rest of Wolverhampton is rather more pessimistic.
In a survey of fans at the end of last season, the Express & Star found "Only eight per cent believe that Wolves will win promotion in 2017/18, with 77 per cent believing it will take between two and four years to reach the top fligh".
Meanwhile, it adds, Wolves' Chinese conglomerate owners Fosun "get an approval rating of only 44 per cent".
