After the success of its debut run — which served as its Winter Spilt — earlier this year, the Kings League returned in May for its Summer Split. The regular season — from May 7 to July 16 — has just ended, with the viewership stats not matching up to its predecessor, although there are mitigating reasons for the same.
Porcinos FC, owned by star Spanish streamer ibai, topped the regular season table with 28 points to advance to the playoffs semifinals. Last season's champion El Barrio and runner-up Aniquiladores FC finished second and third to make the playoffs second round, where they were joined by xBuyer Team. Six other teams progressed to the playoffs first round, with the Semifinals scheduled on July 29 and the Final on July 29 at the Wanda Metropolitano, the home of La Liga giant Atletico Madrid.
Viewership stats from Kings League 2023 Split 2 regular season
The regular season recorded 24.8M Hours Watched and 341K Average Viewers over 73 hours of airtime across Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. The special football tournament peaked at 618K Peak Viewers during the preview of the match between ibai's Porcinos FC and rivers_gg's PIO FC, which the former won 5:1.
The Summer Split saw a change in the rules and format, which was also implemented in the inaugural edition of the Queens League, the simultaneously running football competition involving females. Interestingly, ibai’s side in this event — Porcinas FC — also topped the table to make the playoff semifinals directly.
When it comes to what makes these tournaments unique, teams have secret weapon cards, granting them a penalty, shootout, permission to take off an opposition player for two minutes, double-score goals for two minutes, a wildcard, or the ability to steal the other side's card. Special rules were voted for by fans on social media, with the regulations about teams allowing a professional as the 11th player and a special guest for the 12th player in the roster for each matchday staying the same.
In Split 1, Porcinos FC made the top five most popular matches list three times, but this time, with a dominant run to the top of the table and the playoffs semifinals, it made only one entry, in fourth, for its 4-3 loss to TheGrefg's Saiyans FC. Instead, it was Ultimate Móstoles who was part of the two most popular games, a 6-2 win over Saiyans FC in Week 1 and a 2-1 penalty shootout defeat to Rayo de Barcelona after a 3-3 draw in normal time.
This also meant that Ultimate Móstoles, owned by the highly popular YouTuber DjMaRiiO and the toppers of the regular season in Split 1, was the second most popular side by average online viewers. No prizes for guessing that it was Porcinos FC who topped this table, with the sides of renowned streamer juansguarnizo, rivers_gg, and noted sports journalist cum content creator Gerard Romero also making it to this top five leaderboard.
Looking at the fight for broadcasting supremacy among platforms, Twitch was the most preferred one for viewers, as it took up 62.4% of the overall viewership share, more than double what YouTube was able to garner. TikTok continued its slow but sure rise in the sports and esports broadcasting scene, taking up 9.6% of the pie.
Viewership comparison with Kings League 2023 Split 1
Compared to the regular season of the Kings League 2023 Split 1, the ongoing tournament fell in all the metrics. It did 38.8%, 241.1%, and 34.4% worse in terms of HW, PV, and AV, respectively. One reason was the juxtaposition of ibai’s team doing so well throughout, ensuring less jeopardy towards the latter stages of the season, and Los Troncos FC, the side owned by another famous Twitch star and YouTuber, Perxitaa, struggling to the last position, against all expectations.
During the regular season of Split 1, Los Troncos FC finished third in the table and then made it all the way to the semifinals, losing to Aniquiladores FC 3-2 on penalties after an exciting 2-2 draw in regulation time. Moreover, lesser people seemed to catch the action on Twitch, which in fact lost 14.13% of its share from earlier this year, with Facebook also being a non-factor this time around.
Moreover, the likes of popular retired footballers turned content creators Sergio Aguero and Iker Casillas, alongside sports journalist and streamer Adri Contreras tuned in a lot lesser this time, taking away vital screen time from the competition. Even juansguarnizo had a lower airtime during the regular season of Split 2, leading to a fall in its stats.
The league returns on July 23 with the playoffs first round, where PIO FC faces Saiyans FC, 1K FC takes on Ultimate Móstoles, and Jijantes FC battles Kunisports. xBuyer Team, Aniquiladores FC, and El Barrio, respectively, face the winners in the playoffs second round, with these matches happening at the Cupra Arena in Barcelona.
