The Kings League continued its rapid growth throughout 2024, solidifying its place as a trailblazer in modern sports entertainment. With groundbreaking expansions into more regions, the league continues to capture the attention of global audiences. Although overall viewership for the league fell slightly in 2024, the ongoing Kings World Cup Nations 2025 has brought millions of eyes back to the series.
What is Kings League?
Kings League is a seven-a-side football tournament established in 2022 by former Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué and one of the most popular Spanish streamers, Ibai “Ibai” Llanos. The league’s unique mixture of traditional football and new, exciting rulesets have inspired many other media leagues in livestreaming around the globe. The inclusion of content creators and football celebrities has brought many viewers to the circuit, and at its core, this combination of industries is what the league is all about.
In 2024, the Kings League Schedule introduced the new Americas circuit, led by chairman and Mexican football icon Javier 'Chicharito' Hernández. The Americas circuit introduced ten new teams, giving many Latin American fans new teams to cheer for. Earlier in 2024, the Kings League announced it had received a €60 million funding round through its sports investment firm, Kosmos. The league is already putting its funding to good use with the announcements of its expansions into Italy and Brazil, and some news outlets are reporting that the league will expand to both Asia and the MENA region in the future: fuelled by the features of MENA and Asian streamers at both the 2024 and 2025 World Cups.
In 2025, the league will expand into Italy headed by famed Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović. The country is also hosting the ongoing Kings World Cup Nations 2025, which will set the stage and whet the appetite of Italian fans for more Kings League content. Over in Brazil, the league has partnered with footballing legend Ronaldinho, who had previously made a guest appearance as a player in the Kings League. These expansions are sure to bring new viewers and attention to the rapidly growing media league.
The Kings League has already made ambitious plans for both 2025 and beyond, but let’s take a look at the league’s viewership performance throughout 2024. Streams Charts has collated viewership data for both the original Kings League and its new American expansion this year, so we can compare viewership between the two circuits and also compare the total viewership to the Kings League’s 2023 results.
Kings League 2024 viewership results
Considering all Kings League events, including cups like the Kings Cup 2023 & Kings World Cup 2024, the media league recorded a slight loss in viewership through 2024, despite its new expansion into the Americas. Interestingly, viewership between the seasons of the Kings League and its new American expansion was roughly equal: the new Americas region has been quick to find its feet and secure an audience. Generally, Kings League viewership has been settling this year, following its explosive beginning in 2023.
For the first inaugural split of the Kings League in 2023, viewership was able to reach over 2.1M Peak Viewers (PV). This result was boosted by community casters for the event, including Ibai himself, but the official channels for the league across YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok, were also able to reach millions of concurrent viewers on their own. As we often observe in new game releases and similar situations, viewership for the league was astronomic on release, but things have calmed down since.
The growth of the Kings Cup into the Kings World Cup in 2024 was crucial for the overall viewership of the Kings League. Without the expansion of this cup, the league would have recorded far less watch time during the year. While viewership for the World Cup was explosive and generated massive peaks thanks to the international content creators involved, watch time fell significantly for the standard seasonal events which make up the majority of broadcasting time for the league.
The Kings League’s new expansions into Italy and Brazil are clear attempts to diversify the audience of the league and maximise its potential reach. While viewership could continue to fall in 2025, the leagues expansions into these regions could still be massively profitable. Although the Kings League’s watch time fell in 2024, the brand is still the world’s leading media football league, and it continues to attract millions of viewers from across Latin America, Spain, and more.
Kings League 2024 most popular teams
Looking towards the viewership results for each individual team, SXB FC led the way with almost 1.02M Average Viewers recorded for their matches. The Saudi Arabian team participated in only three matches at the Kings World Cup 2024, with massive support coming from fans of the team’s president Ahmed “sxb” Alqahtani.
Teams which only shortly appeared at the highly-watched World Cup enjoyed large average viewerships compared to teams which competed throughout the entire year; therefore, we have split our ranking into teams with more than and fewer than 10 matches played.
No other team from the World Cup was able to replicate the Middle Eastern team’s seven-figure average viewership. Other popular teams included the French Foot2Rue squad, Deptostra FC from Belgium, Italy’s Stallions, and popular Brazilian creator Alexandre “Gaules” Borba’s G3X FC.
Of the teams with more than 10 matches played, Saiyans FC was the most popular team of the Kings League competitors. The team’s chairperson, David “TheGrefg” Cánovas, is one of Spain’s most popular creators, and his fanbase strongly supported his team throughout each event. Porcinos FC and Ultimate Móstoles were both also supported by their own industry leading content creators: Ibai and Mario “DjMaRiiO” Alonso, respectively.
Kings League 2024 most popular streamers
The most popular broadcasters of the Kings League by peak concurrent viewers were those in attendance of the Kings World Cup 2024. The event which invited teams and creators from regions which have never participated in the Kings League was particularly popular, giving fans from the MENA region, Brazil, and Europe some new teams to cheer for.
Saudi Arabia’s sxb was the most popular creator of the year, followed by other World Cup attendees Mohamed “Aminematue” Mahmoud from France and Gianmarco “Tumblurr” Tocco from Italy. The Arabian streamer is one of Kick’s most popular Arabic-speaking streamers, and his popularity has only grown as Kick settles into the MENA region.
Aside from these creators who enjoyed massive peaks during the special World Cup event, other popular broadcasters included official broadcasts of the league, as well as a spread of Spanish and Latin American streamers. Luis “WestCol” Villa Álvarez and Gaules were the most popular Latin American streamers of the year,
The Kings League’s mixture of community casters and official broadcasters, which has become an incredibly potent formula in esports across the past years, help the circuits to generate its industry-leading viewership.
Most exciting moments of the Kings League 2024
Measuring raw viewership data such as watch time is one way to evaluate the viewership of a broadcaster, but on Twitch, another option is available to us. By tracking the minute-by-minute Twitch Chat data for channels, we can highlight peak moments from their streamers which saw their Chat explode in anger, joy, or any of the other emotions football can bring about.
Firstly, Aminematue’s Chat recorded almost 6,000 total Messages in a single minute during their game against Muchachos FC. The match was tied 4-4 with the game heading into a “golden goal” extra time, meaning that the next scored goal would end the match. Muchachos FC managed to lob the ball into the box, but Foot2Rue’s goalkeeper, Christian Nsapu, was able to block an on-target volley to keep his team in the game.
One of Brazil’s most popular content creators, Gaules, received applause both in-person and through Twitch Chat as he walked out onto the field to take a penalty as the game came to a close. Although his shot was well wide of the goal, the creator smiled as he left the field and his Twitch Chat reacted to his miss.
Both Tumblurr and Samantha “Rivers” Rivera Treviño saw their Chat explode with anxiety as the clock ticked down with a 2x goal multiplier active. The wildcard means all goals are worth double, and while Tumblurr’s team Stallions were able to use this to convert their game to a last-second victory, Rivers’ Chat were shouting for the game to end as they defended their one goal lead. Lastly, TheGrefg’s Chat fell just short of 4,600 messages as the streamer reacted to their first win against Youniors F.C.
Kings League 2024 viewership compared to other media leagues
Although the Kings League’s viewership decreased slightly in 2024, the league still remains the leading media football league in livestreaming. Other competitors, such as Italy’s GOA7 League and Germany’s Baller League, fall significantly behind the trendsetting Spanish circuit. Critically, the GOA7 League’s viewership may fall drastically in 2025 as the Kings League enters the region as the first real competitor for the circuit in Italy.
Germany is one of Europe’s largest audiences for these media football leagues, as seen both by the success of the Baller League and the appearance of the new Icon League, which will compete against the Baller League for viewership in 2025. The Icon League’s recent inaugural season achieved viewership on par with the more established Baller League, setting the stage for strong competition between the two this year.
The Kings League has not made any noise about efforts to expand into Germany recently, although the organization will likely be closely following the fanbase surrounding the German team at the current World Cup Nations. If the region shows enough potential, an expansion into Germany could be lucrative for the circuit, but only if they can supersede the Baller League and Icon League.
Kings League can tick their first year of operation off as a success. Not only was the league supported by Spanish streamers and creators, but their community casts and coverage of the events in the league helped cultivate a healthy ecosystem for the viewership of these events. The unique tournament has already become one of the most-watched events in live-streaming for 2023, and we will just have to see if this form can continue into 2024 as the league continues to evolve and grow.
