BARCELONA, Spain — Getting to the Cupra Arena, home of Gerard Piqué’s Kings League, to see a face-off between a Twitch streamer and a former Real Madrid goalkeeper requires patience and a prayer. Patience because there’s a chance you’ll end up driving in circles in the middle of nowhere, and a prayer that your taxi driver won’t get fed up and leave you stranded in the industrial outskirts of Barcelona.
Upon arrival, there’s a good chance you’ll get mobbed by teenagers hoping to catch a glimpse of soccer legends or internet stars. These celebrities serve as team presidents in the league created by Piqué, an ex-defender for FC Barcelona and ex-partner of Shakira. After the long drive to the area near the Port of Barcelona, our taxi eagerly dumped us in front of what looked like a storage building flanked by two port-a-potties. On the side, a sign read: “Kings League.”
Had it not been for the sign or the soccer players warming up on a nearby practice field, we might have thought we were in the wrong place. Kings League games, broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok, look sleek and well-produced on the screen. In person, though, the 270-spectator Cupra Arena is a far cry from the multimillion-dollar extravagance of traditional soccer stadiums or even modest Spanish high school gyms. The miniscule hallways are painted a drab gray. The arena’s seats are shabby. The VIP seats, where Piqué sits, aren’t so VIP.
All of this may seem like the opposite of what you would expect from Piqué, a soccer legend worth millions. But it doesn’t matter. Piqué’s version of indoor soccer wasn’t meant to be experienced in person; it was meant to be seen on streaming platforms. And online, it looks good enough.
Welcome to the Kings League.
Piqué announced his new vision for indoor soccer last November via his company, Kosmos, less than a week after retiring from FC Barcelona. With the Kings League, Piqué aimed to address what he saw as problems with traditional outdoor soccer. At 90 minutes, he and other Kosmos officials felt old-school matches were too long. They also thought there weren’t enough interesting things happening to entertain viewers.
Kosmos came up with a solution: Make the games shorter to appeal to younger viewers, ramp up the drama, and utilize the power of the internet. Of the Kings League’s 12 teams, nine are headed by streamers, two by ex-professional soccer players, and one by a TikTok star. Nearly all are led by men. The Mexican Twitch star Samy Rivera, known as Rivers, is the only woman president in the Kings League.
All club presidents broadcast their teams’ games on their channels and create content about the league. In addition, they appear on the talk show-style programs hosted by Piqué before and after the games—essentially ensuring that there’s Kings League content streaming all week long.
Oriol Querol, CEO of the Kings League, told Gizmodo the league’s games combined traditional sports with a dynamic TV format where things are happening constantly.
“What we’ve managed to do is to bring together the best of those things. The soccer is high-quality and it looks good. Because if it didn’t, we don’t think it would be sustainable long-term,” Querol said. That doesn’t mean that Kings League soccer isn’t serious, he stressed, it’s just more fun.
Watching a Kings League match is like watching your friends play FIFA. Every Sunday, all 12 teams get together to duke it out over six hours and avoid elimination. Games last for two 20-minute halves, and they’re always different. Although the Kings League has its own official rulebook, Piqué, Kosmos officials, and the presidents delight in adding and changing rules on an almost weekly basis.
What the Kings League lacks in facilities, it makes up for in stunts. To start the game, a referee places the ball in the middle of the field, and teams run to get it from the sidelines, a nod to water polo’s frantic version of a kickoff. During the game, coaches can use one of six “Secret Weapon” cards, which include kicking a rival player out of the game for two minutes or having goals count for two points instead of one.
Piqué also has his moment in the spotlight with his “League Cards,” which add a twist to each match reminiscent of a video game. Each card takes a certain number of players off the field for the last two minutes of the first half and has the remaining ones face off until time is up. The League Cards include a grueling “one vs. one” card, which leaves only one player from each team on the field.
Fans can participate in the Calvinball-style rulemaking, too. In February, the Kings League had fans vote on adopting a new card where club presidents take a penalty kick. Nearly 19,000 fans voted in favor on Twitter, which ultimately led to the February faceoff between Ibai, who holds the world record for most concurrent views on Twitch, and Casillas, the legendary ex-goalkeeper for Real Madrid.
The showdown began a day before that week’s game during a livestream when Casillas dropped onto the field from above with angel wings on his back. Ibai, far from a professional soccer player himself, wasn’t sold on taking the kick at first, but he was convinced when Kings League organizers unveiled a series of videos from Spanish soccer legends, including former Real Madrid coach José Mourinho, encouraging him to “do it.”
“Iker, it’s an honor for me to shoot this penalty kick, man,” Ibai said right before he took his shot on Feb. 19, which Gizmodo saw in person. “What can I say? I’m freaking out, truly. I’ve seen you play games on TV a lot. Being here is weird. I’m having a horrible time.”
The streamer’s agony was short-lived. Against all odds, he scored. As the goal post erupted into sparks and smoke, Ibai ran over to his team on the field and hugged them, all while Casillas appeared to be shocked and muttering profanities. When it was his turn to take a penalty kick against Ibai’s goalkeeper, Casillas suffered another blow. He didn’t make the shot.
The Kings League was born during lunch between Piqué and Ibai. The two partners have created some of the most bizarre sporting events in the history of streaming, such as the Balloon World Cup, where participants fight to keep a balloon from touching the ground. But while the Balloon World Cup was created on a whim, the Kings League was forged over months.
Ibai explained the process after he made his penalty against Casillas. He had streamed himself watching and narrating the match while it happened, and still had drops of sweat on his forehead after the euphoric ending.
“We were eating one day many months ago and we talked about the possibility of creating this league,” Ibai told Gizmodo. “I gave him my ideas, and I also recommended many of the people who are in the league now because I believed they would provide a lot of spectacle and they’re friends of mine. But this is really Piqué’s project.” Piqué declined to speak to Gizmodo about the Kings League.
The friends Ibai refers to include Martí Miras, who is known by his online handle, Spursito. Before entering the Kings League, Spursito primarily streamed soccer content on Twitch and YouTube.
“I knew it could be something really big, but it took a long time for me to sign on at first because I thought, ‘It’s very difficult for this to actually happen. It needs a lot of love, attention, and money,’” he told Gizmodo. “Now I think, ‘Damn, if I didn’t do it, what would have happened?’ I’d be wanting to.”
All teams have names from the internet age. Spursito presides over the team “Rayo de Barcelona,” or “Lightning Bolt from Barcelona” in English. Ibai’s club, “Porcinos FC,” translates to “Swine FC.” The streamer Perxitaa, whose real name is Jaume Cremades, named his team “Los Troncos FC,” which literally means “Tree Trunks FC,” although it also means “the dudes” in Spanish slang.
Twitch has a strong relationship with most of the streamers involved in the Kings League, although the league itself is not a Twitch production. Jannik Hülshoff, a senior director of partnerships at Twitch in Europe, told Gizmodo the Kings League had been a “non-stop hype fest, week-in, week-out” and that he was amazed at the quality of the matches and fan interactivity on the streaming service.
The Kings League presidents are involved in choosing their players in a process inspired by the NBA draft. Anyone can sign up, no professional experience required, and they’re paid to play. Kings League officials declined to tell Gizmodo how much players make, stating only that payment corresponds to the one hour a week (game day on Sundays) it requires players to dedicate to the league. They added that the Kings League is an amateur league and is not designed to compensate players enough to quit their day jobs. Considering the success it’s seen, though, Piqué has announced that players’ salaries will increase next season.
In addition, each team has two players that are considered “wildcards,” whose compensation varies. Ibai’s Porcinos FC has attracted the most attention from its use of wildcards. He snagged Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, the top scorer for Mexico’s national team, for Porcinos’ first game in the Kings League. This past Sunday, retired Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldinho made a brief return to soccer with Porcinos, drawing more than two million viewers to the stream.
Wildcards aside, each president is laser-focused on winning. On Feb. 19, Gizmodo saw Perxitaa exit the Cupra Arena shouting after his team lost.
“At the end of the day, this Source: Gizmodo