What started as a joke by Ibai and Gerard Piqué is on its way to becoming a sport that rivals traditional soccer. At least in terms of spectacle and impact, quality and seriousness are secondary. The first thing is to make fans.
Last weekend tens of thousands of people gathered at Camp Nou (F.C. Barcelona’s stadium) to watch the Kings League final. That day the world discovered the power of the product being put together by a bunch of streamers and youtubers together with the legendary central defender of F.C. Barcelona and the Spanish National Team.
Conquering audiences through traditional television
And of course, when you gather 92,522 spectators in a stadium to watch the final of an amateur soccer league, it is clear that something very big is happening in Spanish society… and beyond our borders.
This phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by the television program El Chiringuito, where a series of commentators gather every week to talk about their favorite teams. Yes, where they always talk about Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, last weekend they talked about the Kings League.
The reflection they made is that traditional soccer has a problem and its name is not the Kings League, but rather its secrecy, its price and its system of exploitation.
The tertuliano makes it clear that if today’s young people, millions of potential viewers, do not have the purchasing power to pay expensive monthly subscriptions to DAZN or Movistar Plus. It makes sense that they would turn to Twitch to watch for free a product that looks like the original and entertains even more.
It is clear that modern soccer must rethink its business model or, otherwise, new forms and new options will reach the new generations, who are the audience of tomorrow… and also of today, given what we have seen.
Almost 100,000 people in a stadium is more than a fad, it is a real alternative. Will FIFA or La Liga listen to the changes in the wind? If they don’t their survival is not guaranteed a few generations from now.
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