Football's Circus: Kings League offers new entertainment alternative 🎪 🤡
Gerard Pique's 7-a-side league launched at the start of the year on a quest to disrupt the football industry and, despite being dismissed by Javier Tebas, it is showing no signs of slowing down...
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When Gerard Pique shared a tweet with a series of circus emoji’s, many in the media presumed it to be a reaction to Shakira, his ex-wife’s, recent diss-track.
In reality, he was using the emojis in response to Javier Tebas, the president of LaLiga, who had described Pique’s recent venture, a seven-a-side football league, as a "circus" that "cannot compare with the football industry."
Known as the Kings League, the tournament is the latest brainchild of the former Barcelona and Spain defender, who previously attempted to overhaul tennis’ Davis Cup, and organised the inaugural Balloon World Cup with Twitch streamer Ibai Llanos, who is also working with him on this new project.
Pique’s Kings League is a mix of new and old.
Several retired Spanish league players sprinkle star dust into the squads which are predominantly filled with young local amateur players. Former Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas who is a president of one of the 12 teams, and ex-Barcelona striker Sergio Agüero, who is a president-player, are among the most well-known football personalities involved.
Most of the other presidents, or owners, are from outside football. Instead, they are hugely popular Internet figures in Spain and the Spanish-speaking world who bring with them millions of followers to the Kings League, which is broadcast for free on Twitch, a platform which is particularly popular for watching esports and video games.
The league has a number of wacky rules; kick-offs are like water polo with the teams racing out to the ball in midfield, draws are decided in a 1990s MLS-style penalty shootout, and similar to ice hockey, a yellow card earns a player a two-minute exclusion.
Each team is also allowed to bring in a ‘ringer’ for each round of games. LA Galaxy’s Chicharito Hernandez, for example, turned out in the opening weekend of fixtures. A contracted LaLiga footballer, who wore a Mexican wrestling mask and went under the name ‘Enigma’ to hide his identity, also made headlines for his attendance in the competition.
Most uniquely, each team’s manager can draw a ‘gold card’ before kick-off which gives him a secret weapon – from having a free penalty kick at any point to having any goal scored in the next two minutes count as double. A new card introduced will even allow teams to deploy Piqué himself on their team.
The model seems to be working, too.
The league reported its peak viewership has reached 1.3 million. Since starting out on January 1st, their account has been the most viewed every Sunday on Twitch – despite being on at the same time as some of the biggest games in LaLiga.
The league, with many of its presidents’ influential streamers in their own rights, often also has over half the representatives of the top 15 most viewed Hispanic streamers on Twitch each game day.
For January, they also reported 238 million views on TikTok, which is more than the Premier League, Bundesliga, LaLiga, and Ligue 1 combined.
Of course, big companies have taken notice of all this attention. Sponsors include Spotify, Adidas, McDelivery, and Cupra – which is part of the Volkswagen Group.
Pique’s former employers, FC Barcelona, seem to have clocked on as well. In news which seems to have gone almost entirely under the radar, Joan Laporta appeared on Pique’s pre-game show to announce that he will open the Camp Nou during the international break in March to host the Kings League Final Four.
With all this considered, is Tebas right when he assures that the Kings League does not not compete with traditional football?
The Kings League, as Mauricio Cabrera has explained in his excellent newsletter Story Baker, “will not compete with the Champions League, the Euros or the World Cup.” However, he emphasises that what Tebas is missing is that “the Kings League does not need to.”
“Like Adam Sandler's movies, they don't need to compete against Marvel movies or those that are considered to win the Oscars.”
For Cabrera, the circus emojis will remain not in response to Shakira, but “as a response to a public that appreciates high competition when possible but for everyday consumption may prefer the Kings League to a Copa del Rey game.”
“I am a firm believer that sport has to evolve. That's why I believe in the value of the Kings League as a new entertainment alternative,” he asserts.
This is an astute observation and one that I would liken to the rise of YouTube boxing.
The ecosystem of boxing has, in my opinion, already been irreversibly shifted. For any fighter unable to compete for world titles, there is greater revenue opportunities in them creating a feud and fighting a YouTuber than an equally competent professional boxer. Tommy Fury’s long-anticipated fight with Jake Paul is perhaps the greatest example of this.
The Kings League provides the first blueprint of this within football.
I believe that the professional and the entertainment disciplines of the sport can co-exist. They can attract and complement one another’s fan bases but focus on different values and propositions.
If this plays out, younger generations will still watch elite football competitions but will also watch the entertainment version of the sport. However, the ‘traditional football’ which sits in the middle ground, the teams in the fourth and fifth tiers which have done nothing to differentiate their offerings, would be best advised not to dismiss this.
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