BarcelonaThe Kings League is recording the worst viewership levels in its short history. During its beginnings, the competition that brought together football, dice, cards and crazy rules attracted the attention of thousands of viewers from all over the world with the intention of making a more fun product for the younger generation. “One of the reasons why we started the Kings League is because I saw my children watching a football match and after ten minutes they were on their phones watching something else”, said Gerard Piqué when he created the league. However, almost two years later, the competition has lost steam and audience levels are far from those obtained during the first splitswhich is how the editions are called. The hype it goes down
The first split (January-March 2023) created great anticipation for all audiences, as ex-player Raúl Martínez says, who competed first with the Troncos and then with Jijantes FC. “We live in a society where we like innovation. When the league was created, it impacted and hooked people”, he says in conversation with ARA. This impact meant that during the first three months, league matches had an average of 557,000 viewers (data from streaming statistics service TVTOP). The debate was even opened as to whether this newly created league would threaten the throne of traditional football competitions in terms of audience.
During this time, the Kings surpassed the number of one million live viewers three times, combining the Twitch, YouTube and TikTok platforms. The first was when 1.37 million viewers tuned in to watch Kun Agüero’s return to a football pitch after his retirement. The second time (during the eighth day) it managed to reach 2.22 million viewers thanks to the appearance of Ronaldinho in the competition. There were also peaks during the final played at Camp Nou, where they managed to sell 92,522 tickets. Up to 2.16 million viewers were tuned in at the peak of the broadcast. “When we played the finals at the Camp Nou, the reception was like a Champions League match, I got goosebumps”, explains Martínez nostalgically, who lost the semi-final.
the second split (May-July 2023), it coincided with the start of the Queens League, the women’s league. At this point, the competition saw a noticeable drop in viewership. TVTOP data showed Queens Saturdays fell short of 200,000 viewers on average, while Kings Sundays hovered around 415,000. This drop in spectators was already foreseen: “People in the league knew that the numbers they got at the beginning were unsustainable. From the inside, they focused a lot on what would be the figure at which they would manage to stabilize”, affirms Raúl Martínez. Despite the relegation, up to 57,000 tickets were sold in the final stages which were played at the Cívitas Metropolitano in Madrid.
Also, during this second splitMediaset obtained the rights to the competition in exchange for one million euros, and broadcast the second season of the Pique league on television, but it was a failure. The competition achieved an average share of 2.8%, and the data for the strip worsened compared to Sundays of the previous year. Consequently, Mediaset decided not to continue betting on the league.
The big drop in audience
After the summer of 2023, the Kings League wanted to be a pioneer by creating a mixed competition, the Kingdom Cup, where one part was played by a men’s team, and the other by the women’s team of the same club. Audiences didn’t respond and streams plummeted by more than 50%. Martínez confesses to the ARA some of the reasons why the league has not re-engaged people: “Continuity has been lost, before there was a storytelling more marked, there were more conflicts that generated debauchery, a bit of bullshit and controversy, which is what people like”. Despite this, the competition continued to be the leader on streaming platforms every Sunday, thanks in part to the audience from Latin America, which began to get hooked after the announcement of the creation of the Kings League Americas , which would be contested in Mexico.
It wasn’t until January 2024 that both the Kings League Americas and the third one started split of the Kings League in Spain. This combination caused the audience of the Spanish competition to drop by 65.5% compared to the first quarter of the previous year, according to TVTOP. On the other hand, in America the league is succeeding, as well expressed by the current player of El Barrio, Marc Valiente. “Now in Latin America there is a lot of following, maybe more than in Spain, but it is normal, since there is more population and for them it is new, they recently created their league”, says the Catalan player in the ‘NOW.
Nor does Lamine Yamal prevent the numbers from hitting rock bottom
L’actual split (the fourth) of the men’s Kings League is seeing viewership drop week after week despite the announcement of Lamine Yamal as the upcoming new president of a team in the league. During the first day (September 15) an average of 170,000 spectators were connected watching the matches. But almost two months later, during the eighth day (November 10), the league has hit rock bottom. They have only managed to attract an average of 85,000 viewers per match across all channels. The average audience for all days of thesplit 4 is around 122,000 viewers per day, which means they have lost more than 434,000 in 20 months.
