What is the Kings League, the 7-a-side football tournament with innovative rules organized by Ibai and Piqué and which breaks audience records

“You know what happens is I would make very radical changes that people would say ‘we can’t do it like this. This is football’. Football is very traditional, can’t we change that?” Gerard Pique in November last year, four days after playing his last game as a professional player, live on the Twitch platform together with the famous Spanish influencer Plains of the Ibai.

The idea that the former Catalan footballer proposed in his speech has aroused a feeling of uncertainty and, in some, even of rejection. Ibai himself was amazed by his position, so much so that in a tweet he asked his followers, in a mocking tone, about the idea: “Does anyone see any sense in this smoke?”.

Get used to the new challenges, how they broke the sporting mold by creating the World Cup ball -better known as the Hot Air Balloon World Cup- which has had worldwide repercussions, and taking advantage of the reach they have on social networks, they have found meaning in Piqué’s idea and have created a championship that has already captured the attention of the public : the league of kings.

And if there were doubts about the sense of the proposal that Piqué has made to Ibai, the public has confirmed to the creators that it is a captivating idea to see. Being that Kings had its first and, so far, only edition last Sunday, it has already broken records in the number of viewers who have seen the content.

The highest peak of spectators during the broadcast it reached an amount of 413 thousand people at the same time, which resulted in him leading the leader board for that day. With that content performance, the channel averaged 313.6 viewers during the broadcast.

The first day added more than 7 million people who viewed the content. These numbers, pure and exclusively of the league channel, do not take into account the number of visitors that the individual streamer channels have had. For example, Ibai finished the second day, behind the league channel, with a high of 322.9K.

Other three streamers, who are leaders in the teams of Leagueentered the top 10 accounts with the most viewers during Sunday’s broadcast. Crazy.

To find out what this idea is all about, which seems to prevail in the broadcasts of digital platforms, such as the World Ballooning Championships, let’s analyze what this new sport is like.

What is the League of Kings?

The first thing to ask is: What is the League of Kings? It’s a club league for a new sport, created by Piqué and streamer Ibai, whose main basis the rules of football but which adopts the rules of the game of other sports such as hockey, water polo and basketball, among others. In addition, it has special situations in which, such as in some video games, it uses charity letters that leaders can use during the game.

The rules are not something that governs future editions, but are changed as if by “trial and error” as they are selected by viewers.

How to play?

Two of the main variations of the sport, compared to traditional football, are the number of players per team and the playing time. Each team has on the pitch seven players (7 against 7), with unlimited changesand the game has a total duration of 40 minutes –which does not stop during the match in the event of a goal or leaving the field-, divided into two parts of 20 minutes Everything is fine.

There is a key point: mandatory, one team will win the match. In leaderboard, it will add as match won or lost, not by score like it works in soccer.

In case of conclusion of the match with a tied score, the result is settled with sanctions. But not the traditional penalties that we know in the king of sports, but the style of hockey is used or as used in the past in US football: one on one with the goalkeeper. The player must start from midfield and must face the goalkeeper trying to evade him –dribbling, shooting from distance, among other possibilities– convert. Both have complete freedom of movement.

The kickoff is another of the changes that have caused an impact due to the situations that have emerged on social networks after the first matches that took place after the start of this Sunday. In the style of water polo, the ball is placed in the center of the field and the players start from the corner line trying to reach the ball first.

Adapted from video games, the creators have found a way to give a different touch to all kinds of traditional sports: the secret weapons. It consists of each team leader choosing, at random, an envelope that contains a hidden advantage, among these: double or triple goal (in case of touches) for one minute, penalty in favour, exclusion of a player for two or five minutes, the goalkeeper he cannot use his hands for a minute, draw cards or jokers.

This pack can be used at any point in the match, but the moment the buff is used will need to be precise as it can be used just once.

Nor will it LAUNCH an advantage that can be used throughout the game. By copying the Hawk Eye system used in tennis or paddle tennis, the VAR can be used during the match on occasions when the team owner requests it. If the request is made and the system confirms that the review request was correct, you will have the option to use it again. Otherwise, he loses that right for the rest of the game.

Unlike the operation that the VAR maintains in football, the referees will have microphones so that the audio between the judges in the plant and the match is transmitted via loudspeaker. Maybe traditional football has a good point at this point to improve the technology in question and provide transparency.

In case of a penalty there is a yellow card and also a red card. Yellow applies a penalty of 2 minutes of exclusion and red 5, until the entry of a substitute.

How is the championship formed?

The league consists of 12 teams led by well-known personalities in the digital broadcasting environment, better known as streamers and/or former players. There, between these teams participates the team kunisports whose president is the former historic footballer of Manchester City, Independiente, Atlético de Madrid, Barcelona and the Argentine national team Sergio Kun Aguero. It also has its own team Iker Casillas.

The development of the tournament will be divided into 11 days and the mode will be “all against all”. After this stage, 8 will qualify for the Play-Offs, as is customary in the NBA, until they advance to the Finals where a champion will be crowned.

The matches are played every Sunday from 21:00 to 2:00 in Argentina (16:00 to 22:00 in Spain) and are broadcast for free on the Twitch and YouTube platforms. The regular stage will end on March 19th.

The players of the team chosen by a draw and the leaders

The Kings League appears to be taking on the role of unifying the rules of other sports. For the selection of 10 of the 12 players that make up the squad, the public opted for the draft, as used in the NBA or NFL in the United States. For the other two remaining, they are chosen by the leader.

How does it work? Players take tests where the leaders evaluate and draw their conclusions about the candidates. During the draw, the leaders will have 20 seconds to select players, who are shown in a certain order during the draw.

It will be 10 rounds choose, where all the players will be, including the goalkeepers since there is not one that is exclusively them. In reserve, there are 50 players left in case you need to use them at some point.

To complete the list of 12 players, each manager chooses who joins the team, being a non-federal player. That’s not to say retired professional footballers can’t participate. They will only be able to do it for one date, they are not permanent on campus.

To be clear, in Kunisports, the team of Kun Agüero, the former striker will play Javier Little rabbit saviola for an appointment. For the Porcinos FC, led by the streamer Ibai, the Mexican played Chicharito Hernández.

Which teams and streamers are participating?

The championship participates: Pigs FC (Ibai Llanos), Saiyan FC (TheGrefg) Last Mostole (DjMaRiiO), The neighborhood (Adri Contraras) kunisports (Kun Aguero), Pius FC (Rivers), Annihilators (John Guarnizo) the trunks (Perxitaa), 1K FC (Iker Casillas) thunderbolt of barcelona (spat), Buyers Team X (Buyer Brothers) e Jijantes FC (Gerardo Romero).

Gerad Piqué has found the possibility, together with Ibai, to grow an idea that has matured for some time. So far, being a young business, it has already paid off. And they want more, with a possible addition imminent to the women’s league.