The Kings League is a seven-a-side football league founded by Gerard Piqué and Spanish content creator ibai. The league has expanded since its establishment in late 2022, and now features a female Queens League, as well as an expansion into Latin America. Although the league has been expanding and growing, viewership for the league has been dwindling since its explosive beginning. The recent Winter 2024 splits of both the Kings and Queens Leagues garnered the largest Spanish-speaking audience in live streaming so far this year, despite receiving their lowest viewership yet.
The first-ever iteration of the Kings League, Kings League 2023 Split 1, reached over 2.11M concurrent viewers for its most popular match, and expectations were high for the league to become one of the most-watched sports events in live streaming. However, the recent Kings League 2024 Split 3 did not manage to reach 500K concurrent viewers, highlighting a downturn in viewership and attention for the football league.
The most recent split of the Kings League received 13.37M Hours Watched across almost 91 hours of broadcasting time. The event spanned four months and generated sizable viewership throughout, but compared to the previous highs the league has enjoyed, 2024 continued the downturn in viewership for the league.
The most popular match of the event reached only 494.9K Peak Viewers, featuring Ultimate Móstoles and Saiyans FC in the Grand Final of the split. Ultimately. Saiyans FC achieved their first ever Kings League championship, making them the fifth team to win a Kings League event. No team in Kings League history has ever won two events, and Saiyans continued this legacy by denying Ultimate Móstoles their second event victory.
Despite the decreasing viewership for the Kings League as the hype wears off, it still remains the most popular content in live streaming for Spanish-speaking audiences. The Kings League 2024’s 494.9K Peak Viewers was the single largest Spanish-speaking concurrent viewership an esports or sports tournament has seen in 2024. The sports event was more popular than the League of Legends and Valorant events which have taken place in 2024 so far, and it was even more popular than the Twitch Rivals: Hunt & Run w/ IlloJuan, ft. Minecraft, which was previously the most popular Spanish event of 2024 with 489K PV.
The official kingsleague Twitch channel was the most popular broadcaster of the event, having reached 119.6K Peak Viewers. Ibai, founder of the league and popular content creator, reached 100.6K Peak Viewers, becoming the only content creator to reach over 100K viewers during the league.
Notably, viewership for the league is down across the board. The 2024 Split 3 event received 58.8% fewer hours of watch time despite a slightly longer broadcasting time, and both Peak Viewers and Average Viewers fell by an even larger amount. As the Kings League continues its journey in online live streaming, it has settled into more reasonable viewership compared to the heights enjoyed in 2023. Despite these decreases, it remains the most popular event of 2024 for Spanish-speaking viewers.
The Queens League Oysho was the first 2024 event for the female league, and its second ever split. The event series generated 4.6M Hours Watched and held an average concurrent viewership of 56.1K Average Viewers throughout.
Compared to the Kings League, the Queens League’s dynamics showed an even stronger downturn in viewership. Watch time fell for the league by 66% compared to the inaugural Queens League event, and both Peak Viewers and Average Viewers decreased by a larger relative amount than its Kings League 2024 counterpart.
The kingsleague official Twitch channel was the most popular broadcaster of the event, but this time it could reach only 79.5K Peak Viewers. The YouTube-based Kings League InfoJobs channel was the second most popular channel, outperforming Mexican content creator rivers_gg.
Rivers is a female creator and chairperson for the PIO FC team. Although she usually enjoys high viewership for these Queens League events, the overall downturn in viewership was mirrored for her. In mid-2023, she received over 213.8K Peak Viewers for the Grand Final of the previous Queens League split, and in 2024 she was not even able to reach 50K concurrent viewers.
Combining the viewership of both the male and female sides of the football event series, 2024 did not bring any increases in viewership for the Kings and Queens Leagues. The two combined 2024 splits garnered 17.97M Hours Watched, a substantial decrease from the 46M HW they generated for their previous splits.
The inaugural split of the Kings League was its most successful foray, reaching over 47M Hours Watched by itself. The second 2023 split of the Kings League reached only 32.5M Hours Watched, marking a 30.9% drop in watch time for the football league. The 60% drop in viewership for the 2024 editions marks the single largest drop in viewership the league has yet experienced.
One prevailing strength of the Kings League is the popularity of the teams that make up the league. By assigning content creators and internet personalities as chairpersons to the teams, these teams were able to quickly build up a following and audience to support them.
PIO FC is by far the most popular team competing in both the Kings and Queens Leagues. As aforementioned, rivers_gg is the chairperson for the team, and she has emerged as the most popular creator within the Queens League and one of the most popular creators associated with the Kings League. Her team PIO FC was mentioned over 41.8K times in Twitch Chats broadcasting the leagues, and her team also enjoyed the largest number of individual chatters to mention them, 14.7K Twitch chatters.
Aniquiladores FC and Rayo de Barcelona were also noticeably more popular than many of the other competing teams, again thanks to the chairpersons behind them. Aniquiladores FC is supported by popular Colombian creator juansguarnizo, who has over 11.2M Twitch Followers, and Rayo de Barcelona has Spursito as their chairperson.
Interestingly, the size and popularity of the creators behind the teams does not necessarily always boost the popularity of their team. Rivers’ team PIO FC was far more popular than juansguarnizo’s, despite river having only half of juansguarnizo’s Followers on Twitch. DjMaRiiO’s team, Ultimate Móstoles, was mentioned only 10.4K times, despite being a finalist for the recent Kings League Split. DjMaRiiO’s Twitch following is also similar to Spursito’s, whose team enjoyed far higher mentions in Twitch Chats broadcasting the league.
Both the Kings and Queens League enjoy a large following of Spanish-speaking fans and viewers, but viewership has continued to drop for the leagues after each split they have hosted. As the hype and excitement of something new has worn off, the Kings and Queens Leagues are settling into the viewership they can expect to receive in the coming years.
The Kings League, particularly, remains extremely popular. Despite the downturns in viewership, the league continues to outperform the world’s largest esports events, and the most popular events featuring Spanish content creators and internet personalities. If the leagues want to reach the heights they enjoyed last year, they will need to bring something new to incite excitement among their fanbases.
