⚽ Gerard Pique Kings League on stage with Giovanni Aquilanti at SPORTEL Monaco.
Innovating the game like my book "Calcio Ribelle"
When Gerard Piqué retired from professional football in November 2022, he wasn't content to simply rest on his laurels. Instead, the former Barcelona defender embarked on an ambitious venture to revolutionize football for younger generations. In a recent interview, Piqué revealed how his Kings League has become a sensation by reimagining football for the streaming age.
The catalyst for this innovation came from a surprising personal revelation: Piqué himself had stopped watching traditional 90-minute football matches on TV near the end of his career. More tellingly, he noticed his own children couldn't maintain attention for full matches either. The younger generation's passion for the sport remains strong, but their consumption habits have evolved dramatically.
The numbers speak for themselves: Every Sunday, the league attracts 2.5-3 million unique viewers in Spain alone, with an impressive average viewing time of 30 minutes. Their women's competition, the Queens League, draws over 1 million viewers on Saturdays – achieving a 40% viewership ratio compared to the men's league, a proportion unheard of in traditional football.
What makes the Kings League so appealing? It's a perfectly engineered product for the TikTok generation. Games last just 40 minutes (two 20-minute halves), and the format includes attention-grabbing elements like a special orange ball in the final two minutes that makes goals count double. Perhaps the most exciting innovation is the use of dice throws from the stands that can suddenly transform the game into a 2v2 or 3v3 format for short periods.
The league's distribution strategy is equally modern. Instead of traditional TV rights, the Kings League streams freely on YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. Team ownership is primarily in the hands of popular streamers who broadcast matches on their own channels, bringing their loyal communities with them. The player mix includes both emerging talents and legends like Ronaldinho, Pirlo, and Eden Hazard.
Looking ahead, Piqué's ambitions are global. The league plans to expand to 10-12 territories by the end of 2025, and they're launching their first World Cup of Nations in January 2025. The competition will feature 16 nations, with fans choosing their national team players – a level of audience participation unthinkable in traditional football.
But perhaps most interesting is Piqué's broader vision for sports entertainment. He recognizes that modern sports aren't just competing with each other anymore – they're up against Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, TikTok, and countless other entertainment options. "Sports have to be fun. They have to entertain," he emphasized.
With 85% of their viewers under 34 years old, Piqué seems to have cracked the code for engaging Gen Z with sport in their own language and on their own terms.
#football #innovation #soccer #livesports
