The inaugural split of the Kings League Brazil got underway last weekend, with two matchdays taking place between Friday and Sunday. The event has attracted some pretty good viewership numbers, led by coverage from some of the biggest names in Brazil’s livestreaming scene.
The Kings League Brazil 2025 Split 1 is being held at the Oreo Arena (Banijay Studios) in Guarulhos, São Paulo, in front of thousands of passionate fans. The first two gamedays showed that the hybrid football league has the potential to put up some impressive audience figures, having already peaked at 749,173 concurrent viewers during the game between Furia FC and FC Real Elite.
Furia's presidents are none other than Brazilian football superstar Neymar and prominent influencer and entrepreneur Cris Guedes, both of whom are known to be good friends. Real Elite, meanwhile, is owned by the South American nation's famous Brazilian singer-songwriter Ludmilla and Allan "oestagiario" Rodrigues, one of the country's top Twitch and Kick content creators.
The peak of around 750,000 concurrent viewers came towards the end of the high-voltage game that eventually saw Furia emerge as 4:2 victors. It included one president from both teams taking penalties as part of the league's innovative rules, with Cris Guedes scoring and Ludmilla missing to hand the initiative to Furia, who ended up taking full advantage of the situation.
Such was the success of the opening weekend that Brazil was second only to the Spanish edition in terms of popularity among the four regions where the league is now active, the Americas and Italy being the others. However, it led in the other two key metrics, suggesting that this version could challenge the original as the top competition in the King League franchise for audience reach.
The first split of this new league attained over 6.6 million Hours Watched (HW) and averaged almost 500,000 concurrent viewers. The former figure was 6.63% better than the first two weeks of the Kings League 2023 Split 1, which had the advantage of being an entirely new concept in football that had the backing of two of the most recognisable celebrities in Spain.
This success is not surprising, though. Brazil is known for its almost religious love for the beautiful game, so it’s only natural that the Kings League concept, birthed in Spain by Twitch superstar Ibai "ibai" Llanos and Barcelona legend Gerard Pique, has been accepted with open arms by fans: all the matches have been sell-out affairs.
The presence of an almost all-star cast of team owners and presidents has added to the excitement among followers. Moreover, this hybrid seven-a-side tournament is being covered by heavyweight streamers like Casimiro "CazeTV" Miguel, Alexandre "Gaules" Chiqueta, Victor "loud_coringa" Augusto, and Aliffe Henrique "paulinholokobr" de Carvalho, with the latter trio also performing duties as team presidents.
All of these names have played a major role in the tournament's success so far, with only paulinholokobr missing from the most popular channels list. In fact, the official Kings League Brasil channel only ranks fifth by peak concurrent viewership, reiterating once again why Brazil's streamers are among the handful who can outperform official channels at events, be they in the competitive video gaming or non-esports categories.
Even the legendary AC Milan and Brazil midfielder Kaka is involved as the league President, with his fame enough to pull in quite a few fans who are new to the concept or who usually follow traditional football in Europe and South America.
The league has even attracted attention from Spanish-speaking influencers like Andy "elzeein" Merino and Mario "DjMaRiiO" Gallardo. This duo will undoubtedly attract more viewers for the event from regions like Latin America, Spain, and Andorra, playing a big hand if it goes on to become one of the franchise's top tournaments.
The first couple of days have proved what many had already been thinking: a Kings League edition in Brazil had the potential for major success. Fueled by passionate crowds, world-famous celebrities, and some of the country's top content creators and influencers, it could very well end at the zenith of the Kings League universe come the final in June.
