“If this dynamic continues, within five years Barça and Madrid will no longer be able to compete in Europe; neither they nor any other Spanish club. Unless there is a regulation so that everyone plays with the same rules, the clubs that do not have a country behind them or an owner who injects money will not have enough resources,” warned Gerard Piqué during his speech at the Expansión
The president of the Kings League and president and founder of Kosmos advocated rethinking the competition itself to adapt to changes in the way we consume: “Sport must evolve towards shorter and more unique competitions, with a more premium character. I know it is a utopia, but soccer should be more like American football, with three or four intense months that paralyze the country. From his point of view, these changes are necessary for sport to be able to compete with new forms of entertainment. “The public has few hours to entertain themselves and they can do it in different ways,” from platforms like Netflix and HBO to social networks like TikTok.
Although this vision of shortening the duration of competitions and increasing matches between big clubs shares some features with the Super League conceived by Florentino Pérez, it introduced some nuances. “The Super League is a closed league and I am against it, because it would generate more income and would increase the value of a few clubs, the largest ones.” However, this would imply “destroying many second-tier teams whose clubs would go on to compete in much smaller leagues and, in the long term, not compete directly.” In this way, he stressed that “sports merit has to prevail, but the calendar must change and be reduced.”
On the other hand, Piqué considered that the traditional model of income generation in the world of sports is exhausted. “Traditional sports must look for other sources of income, because people are tired of paying so much for soccer and the market gives what it gives,” he said. For example, he pointed out that the target audience for soccer in Spain can no longer grow to a large extent. Although users pay extra, “it is not a sustainable model.” In this way, he explained the advantages that he has been able to exploit with the Kings League, his great project that is about to complete its first year of life. “The evolution of the model is directed towards a search for the greatest possible impact: the more people follow you and consume you, the more you will be able to sell more t-shirts and generate more other types of income,” the former soccer player stressed.
Precisely, the Kings League will begin its international expansion next January with the jump to Mexico. It will do so with a selection of teams led by streamers of different nationalities, from Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela to Mexico and Argentina. “There will be representation from the entire Spanish-speaking American continent: we consider that the language is very important, because the interaction between the presidents is key to success,” said Piqué, who acknowledged that the project has evolved much faster than they expected. . “It’s been a meteoric ride,” he said.
What are the keys to success? Although he cited several factors, “one of the main ones is the fact of involving the streamers, who today are the rockstars of the 1980s, as well as the fact of being able to shape a sport like football and change its rules.” “. As the founder of Kosmos stressed, “we want to expand globally and be something like the FIFA of the Kings League: in 2024 the project will be internationalized.” After the opening of the competition in America, plans are to make the leap to Europe next year in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Looking ahead to 2025, Piqué indicated that he is focusing on the United States and Brazil, to later reach Asia.
At the closing of the event, Víctor Francos, president of the CSD, assured that “I refuse to see the Kings League as a threatening phenomenon.” In this sense, he clarified that “our political action has a strategic vision: I am fully open to changes and they do not scare me.” At the beginning of a new legislature, Francos wanted to vindicate the role of the Public Administration in the sector and concluded that “society without sport would be worse.”
