The Queens League 2023, similar to the highly-popular Kings League, is a seven-a-side football tournament established this year in Barcelona by Gerard Piqué and Spanish streaming legend ibai, alongside other popular names. It did decent numbers over the first week of its summer split, and if the performances of its men’s cousins are anything to go by, the viewership stats will only continue to rise.
The event was simultaneously broadcast not only on streaming platforms but also TV, as this time around, league matches can be seen on the TV channel Cuatro. Like its male counterpart, this football media league has rules that include a tie-breaker penalty shootout, unlimited substitutions, and the implementation of secret weapons.
When it comes to players, FC Barcelona Femení and Switzerland’s Ana-Maria Crnogorčević is part of the Saiyans FC staff, while her club teammates Patricia Guijarro, Clàudia Pina, and Sandra Paños are ambassadors for different teams. So too are Spain's Jennifer Hermoso and Chile's Christiane Endler, while Zaragoza CFF, Egypt, and former Barcelona player Sara Ismael was the number one draft pick.
Influencers who own some of the teams are ibai, rivers, VioletaG, Paula Gonu, DjMaRiiO, Mayichi, Espe, Adri Contreras, TheGrefg, noe9977, and Spursito, which is one of the selling points of this competition. Seeing these stars go out of their way to manage their sides and produce content while following the league’s matches is a big attraction for fans and viewers.
The Queens League 2023 hit 306K Peak Viewers on Week 1 during the clash between ibai’s Porcinas FC and Sergio Aguero’s Kunitas, which the latter won 3:1 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in regulation time. There were six games played between the 12 teams at the Cupra Arena in the Port of Barcelona.
The first week of this star-studded event was entirely covered in Spanish. In terms of platforms, Twitch took up a massive 79.19% of the overall viewership chart, with YouTube being the other platform to get a share of the pie.
Users seemed to enjoy watching the live action on the official channels of the league. The Twitch channel accounted for the top spots in the most popular and watched metrics, with the corresponding YouTube channel finishing fourth and second, respectively.
Not surprisingly, ibai was near the top of these charts, being the second-most popular and third-most watched channel. Following him were fellow Twitch megastars like rivers, TheGrefg, and DjMaRiiO (YouTube), who all have stakes in the league, as seen above.
With the Queens League 2023 including the participation of current professionals from women’s football, apart from the same conditions and pay as the Kings League, there is a lot of room for growth. With a lot more game weeks to go and many special names still to come in as the 11th and 12th players for sides, expect this football extravaganza to attract a lot more eyeballs before it reaches its conclusion via the Final Four event on July 29.
