As the Kings League came to a close for 2023, so did their sister partner, the Queens League. Queens League is an off-shoot of the Kings League was announced shortly after the start of the Kings League's inaugural season. The Queens League is planned to follow the same format as the Kings League, but due to its late start this year the Queens League will only feature one Split or season in 2023.
The singular season of the year ended at the end of June, as PIO FC triumphed over Las Troncas FC in the Final: a 3-1 victory for PIO FC. Similarly to the Kings League, each team is represented by a chairperson, usually a celebrity or internet personality. The champions PIO FC are represented by rivers_gg, the largest Spanish-speaking female streamer in the world. Runners-up Las Troncas FC are represented by VioletaG and Aniquiladoras FC by Espe.
PIO FC lifted the trophy after the Final at the Cupra Arena in Barcelona, via Queens League
Queens League is not intended as a secondary option to the Kings League, but as a legitimate league whose teams receive the exact same conditions and pay as their Kings League counterparts. Kings League’s 2023 season was one of the most-watched series of the year, matching up against both the largest esports events of the year and also the most-watched live-streaming events of all time. So, how did the Queens League’s viewership stack up?
Queens League viewership
Queens League experienced a very successful debut season, reaching 13.39M Hours Watched by the end of the season. To make the obvious comparison, this pales in comparison to Kings League’s 32.49M Hours Watched for the summer season. However, 13.39M hours of watch time is an accomplishment by any means and it's a good sign for the league's growth.
The dynamics of the viewership throughout the season are quite similar to those of Kings League. Viewership was stable throughout the main season, with viewership averaging anywhere from 100-200K. The lowest points of the season are towards the tail-end, around Weeks 9 and 10. Similar to Kings League, the Queens League experienced a huge boost in viewership as the Playoffs stage proceeded.
Viewership for the Playoffs stage was averaging over 500K AV and the peak of 880K concurrent viewers was actually reached during the Semifinals match between PIO FC and Porcinas FC. The Grand Final of the event did reach 721K concurrent viewers, nothing to scoff at, but both Semifinals outshone the ultimate match of the tournament. Rivers_gg, chairperson of PIO FC, and Gemita, chairperson of Porcinas FC, both streamed the match on their respective Twitch channels. Rivers’ stream was the more successful of the two and she reached 178K PV during the Semifinals. Viewership only continued to trend upward for rivers_gg, who reached 213K PV during her stream of the Finals.
Although the Queens League’s statistics cannot directly match up to the Kings League’s, the event was one of the most successful female events ever live-streamed. The event garnered more Hours Watched than any female esports event ever and the PV figure of 880K makes it one of the most popular streams on Twitch, ever. The event was more popular per concurrent viewers than ibai’s new year's stream in Madrid, 801K PV, and more popular than Z Event 2021, 720K PV. Z Event is a charity event run by some of the most-popular French streamers and is consistently one of the biggest French events of the year.
Also worth mentioning, the Queens League is affected by the deal with Mediaset as Kings League is. Both Kings and Queens Leagues were covered on Cuatro during the summer season; Cuatro is a free-to-air television channel for Spain. With a free viewing experience available for many Spaniards on television, it's hard to say if the Queens League’s online live-streaming statistics were diluted or affected by this alternative.
Queens League broadcasting statistics
Also, community casters were a more important factor for the Queens League than the Kings. In our analysis of the Kings League’s broadcasting, we noted that community casters were active but they were unable to dethrone the official Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok broadcasts. However, rivers_gg managed to outperform the YouTube broadcast when it came to Peak Viewers, and she amassed 973K Hours Watched, markedly less than the official Twitch and YouTube broadcasts, but outperforming the TikTok stream. As previously mentioned, rivers_gg achieved her Peak Viewers figure during the Semifinals game of the event.
Behind rivers_gg in the data is ibai on Twitch, with a peak of 104K during the Playoffs and xBuyer on YouTube. xBuyer managed to reach 79K PV during the other Semifinals game. xBuyer, the chairperson of his eponymous xBuyer Team, reached this peak of concurrent viewers during a 3-5 loss to Las Troncas TC.
In regards to the platforms of the event, the statistics are quite similar to what we observed for Kings League. For Kings League, viewership on Twitch declined coming into the summer season, although it remained the most-popular platform option for audiences. Ultimately, the statistics here are quite similar to the data for Kings League, although Twitch earned a slightly larger share of the total watch time and TikTok suffered more heavily.
Curiously, looking towards the dynamics of both Kings and Queens League, TikTok was more active and dynamic for the Kings League season. Viewership fell and rose throughout the season as different match-ups played out, and ultimately viewership spiked to new heights during the Playoffs. However, for Queens League, TikTok did receive some spikes in viewership throughout the season but generally, the platform did not receive much attention. The Viewership did spike on the final day of the Playoffs stage, but this wasn’t enough to give TikTok a sizable chunk of the total viewership.
Ultimately, Queens League received solid viewership for its inaugural season but was not as successful as Kings League. Although not all bad, this difference in viewership means that the Queens League has a stronger presence of community casters and the league could potentially weaponise this community connection to build up a loyal and reliable audience for their matches. Kings League recently announced plans to expand into LATAM for next year, with Italy and France in their sights for 2024, and England and Germany for 2025. As Kings and Queens continue to expand their influence across the globe, the football series could become one of the biggest franchises in online live-streaming.
