Gerard Piqué has had a busy week. The former soccer player presented on Wednesday, from Mexico City, the second Kings League, its American version with 12 new teams chaired by content creators, reggaeton singers and soccer players. On Friday, back in Barcelona, he directed the live program prior to the start this Sunday of the Kingdom Cup, which mixes the male and female players of each team in mixed matches. But this effervescence of tournaments and the international expansion of the competition collides with the drop in audience that has suffered in recent months.
With your eyes on the numbers, jump over the puddle and throw the Kings League Americas It is a successful strategy. The league organized by Kosmos, Piqué’s company, has experienced an accelerated trend in the decline in viewers suffered by Spanish streamers compared to Latin American ones, but two of its teams with the most following on social networks – one could even say that with a loyal fan base – are chaired by content creators from the region: the Pío FC of the Mexican Rivers and the Colombian Annihilators JuanSGuarnizo.
New ‘Kings’ from Mexico City
This American edition, which will be held in Mexico City starting in January simultaneously and with the same rules as the original, replicates the launch strategy of the first version. with the mexican Miguel Layun in Piqué’s role as president of the league, leading the teams he combines ‘youtubers’ such as German Garmendia (with more than 40 million followers on two of its channels) or TheDonato, ‘streamers’ (Westcol, Zeein, Castro), ‘tiktokers’ (Jero Freixas) and footballers (James Rodriguez y Chicharito Hernandez). The reggaeton and trap singer Arcángel will also preside over a team.
???? Presentation data #KingsLeagueAmericas (league channels + presidents) ????
▶️ Media viewers ????: 470K
▶️ Golden minute ????: 575K???? Channels (media):
???? ???????? #River ???? – 106.7K
???? ???????? #KingsLeague (#Twitch) ????⚽️ – 102.6K
???? ???????? KingsLeague (#YouTube) ????⚽️ – 64.9K
4⃣ ???????? #Alofoke ????️ -… pic.twitter.com/UCFhQzEbGk— TVTOP Spain (@tvtop_es) October 25, 2023
The presentation, during Latin American time (three in the morning in Spain), brought together an average of 470,000 simultaneous viewers adding all the channels of the league and each president, according to data from the specialized platform ‘TV Top’. But two of the most followed were Ibai Llanos and DjMariio, who will not broadcast these matches live when the competition begins.
It will not be the last version of the Kings League. The one in Brazil has already been announced with Neymar as president of one of the teams and the objective is to create an ecosystem in which all these teams face each other in a “future international competition”according to the Kosmos statement.
More changes for the new Kingdom Cup
This does not mean that the Spanish version is heading towards a pause that presidents like Kun Agüero consider necessary for the health of the competition. This Sunday the Kingdom Cup, the seventh tournament in less than a year: two Kings leagues (men’s) and one Queens league (women’s), the cup version of both and the Prince Cup (children). In other words, In just ten months there are six ‘champion’ teams.
If Piqué announced his competition as a way to renew football to make it more attractive and spectacular for the audience, the Kingdom Cup takes this to another level and “revolutionizes the rules of the Kings universe,” says Kosmos. It will not only be “the first football competition in history that includes women’s and men’s teams in the same match”, in which they will play the first half and they will play the second, otherwise in each half the teams will start with a player and a goalkeeper on the field of play. Each minute a partner will be added, until in the fifth the alignment is complete.
First competition in the history of sports that the men’s and women’s teams play together.
HISTORY. https://t.co/LpuVsLYp97
— Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) October 29, 2023
Furthermore, from the 18th and 38th minutes, when the goals have double value, two dice will decide how many players will remain on the field and the order of the attacks. With the teams separated into two groups for a new cup format, the last tournament of the year will celebrate its ‘final four’ at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona in less than a monthon November 25, with a 100,000 euro prize for the winner.
The drop in audiences of the Kings League
Just one live matchday every Sunday and the incentive of finding this year’s definitive ‘champion’, Will this be the formula for the Kings League to rise in viewership? The league’s official channel on Twitch had its best numbers between January and March, when Piqué’s “circus” was launched with masked players or the presence of Ronaldinho, but its numbers have not stopped falling since then. From around 270,000 spectators during January to 84,000 this Octoberaccording to data collected by the ‘TwitchTracker’ platform.
The initial impetus for the novelty and the launch of the Queens League, which is broadcast on the same channel and despite its good figures is below the men’s version, partly explain this drop. But there is also a less general monitoring as each of the competitions has progressedas can be seen taking as a sample the audience of the three finals with public that have been held so far.
The first, at the end of March in a full Camp Nou, maintained an average of 783,000 simultaneous viewers and a golden minute of 1.1 million. The second, which mixed Kings and Queens for the first time in a Metropolitano at half throttle at the end of July, was left in about 375,000 average and 616,000 peak. And the third, a successful event at La Rosaleda in mid-October, marked a new low: average of 189,000 and maximum of 273,000. 75% less audience in just seven months.
The challenges of Kosmos
This drop has not only occurred on the league’s official Twitch channel. The content creators who preside over the 12 teams also broadcast their matches live on their social networks and, generally, the entire day when it is a final. In this case, according to the data collected by the platform TVTop Adding all the profiles, they have dropped 67%: from 1.43 million on average and 2.16 million in the golden minute at Camp Nou it has gone to 455,000 and 705,000, respectively, in La Rosaleda. Between them, 811,000 and 1.43 million in the Metropolitano final.
Does this mean that the Kings League has been just a mirage? Not quite. The league’s Twitch channel remains one of the most successful worldwide, only surpassed by video game competitions such as ‘League of Legends’ and DOTA. The competition has dozens of sponsors, from Spotify to Adidas, InfoJobs or Mahou, and is capable of filling in-person events in some of the most important stadiums in Spain.
Teams that did not exist a year ago and players unknown until entering the league add up hundreds of thousands of followers on social networks, followers who connect with the programs before and after each matchday, follow the transfers and news in specialized media or buy the growing ‘merchandising’ of the competition. But the figures are closer to ‘esports’ than to the football revolution that they promised. Javier Tebaswho at the beginning of the year asked himself “in six months, let’s see how much we talk about the Kings League”, can breathe easy.
2023-10-30 18:38:15
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