The Icon League is the newest media football league entering the livestreaming sphere, featuring celebrities and personalities from across German football & pop culture and making a tour around the country. The league was founded by former professional footballer Toni Kroos and livestreaming star Elias Nerlich, also known as Eliasn97.
The league is inspired by the Kings League, and similar to the other European media leagues which have popped up in its wake, such as The Baller League and GOA7 League. After being announced in November last year, German football and livestreaming fans have been waiting almost a year for the first kick-off of The Icon League. It kicked off on September 1 in Cologne’s Lanxess Arena, which is well used to live broadcasting events in esports as well as traditional sports.
The league sees teams play five-on-five on a compact pitch, with the hope for games with plenty of goals. The games are played with 12 minutes a half, and the last two minutes of each half treated as “net playing time”, meaning the ball must be in play for two minutes. Draws will be decided with a golden goal and the offside rule is not enforced.
The opening day of viewership for The Icon League saw it enjoy 1.16M Hours Watched on its opening day at the Lanxess Arena.
A significant amount of viewers came from Eliasn97’s channel, whose broadcast of the event became his second-most-popular stream on Twitch ever. Overall, viewership for the first day of football reached 213.8K Peak Viewers. The German streamer is well known for hosting special events, and The Icon League’s treatment as one of these special events will help it reach hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Generally, media football leagues receive massive viewership for their first few times live, but slowly the hype settles down, and they reach a lower but more stable viewership. Nevertheless, with 161.9K Average Viewers recorded for their first day, the league will likely continue to reach more than a hundred thousand viewers in their upcoming events.
Read also: GOA7 League sets another viewership record in Summer 2024 thanks to loyal Italian audience
Perhaps more so than other media leagues we’ve seen, The Icon League is leaning heavily on pop culture and football, rather than online livestreaming culture. The league features famous footballing stars from Germany like Rüdiger and even French footballer Ribéry, but also personalities like German rapper Luciano and TV host Laura Wontorra. This deep connection to pop culture might help the league reach a wide DACH-region audience and grow its viewership.
The Icon League outperformed both its German rival The Baller League and the Italian GOA7 League in all major metrics: watch time, peak concurrent viewers, and average concurrent viewers. This explosive start to the league’s online presence is a good sign for potential growth for the new German league.
With this being said, The Icon League’s dependence on Eliasn97 is clear. The German streamer was responsible for the vast majority of the league’s viewership, and without Elias, the league would have been closer to the GOA7 League in size than The Baller League. The BALLERLEAGUE official Twitch channel received tens of thousands of more viewers on its debut than TheIconLeague, which generated only 17% of the event’s viewership.
Read also: Baller League inaugural season results
The critical next step for The Icon League will be to expand its viewership to more than just Eliasn97’s broadcast and reach more potential German fans through the many top-list celebrities appearing and participating in the league. Streams Charts will continue to track the upcoming viewership for the event, as it tours around Germany to many of its largest cities.
