Kings League is coming to Germany in 2025 – Piqué announces Baller League

Mario Götze (middle), Trymacs, Papaplatte, Younes as president lead Team Germany around Moritz Leitner to the Kings League World Cup. Image: Kings League

Analyze

Follow

Baller League, Icon League, Infinity League and Kings League: With the number of semi-professional indoor tournaments that have emerged in the last year and a half, it’s easy to lose track. Hence a short summary.

And then there’s the Kings League, something like the granddaddy of all the hype about connecting athletes and entertainers. Former professional soccer player Gerard Piqué made the small-field format big in Spain and has now organized a World Cup for the second time.

What sounds like it’s time for a tournament in Qatar again will, however, take place in Milan and Turin in the next two weeks – and also in Germany in 2025.

But can it work?

Kings League brings Trymacs and Papaplatte on board

The first World Cup participation was not very glorious. At the team tournament in June in Mexico City, the German team led by president Mario Götze and Tiktok star Younes was eliminated early after two defeats.

For the second edition they have now received additional support from the streamer Trymacs, who withdrew from this project after a year of Baller League, and Papaplatte. Initially no concentrated football expertise, but more than two million followers on Twitch and YouTube, where the games are shown.

The Kings League boasts of having set new standards for global sports streaming in its first World Cup edition “with 52.5 million viewers and broadcasts in 50 countries”. While the parties were shown on Dazn (in Belgium and Portugal) or RTL (in the Netherlands), the games in Germany could only be seen on Twitch.

Finally, the Baller League on ProSiebenSat.1 and the Infinity League on Dazn also have their own small-field formats.

How much the Kings League project is still in its infancy in Germany is evident from the relatively few Instagram followers (16,600) for the German side. The Baller League has 368,000 and the Icon League has 538,000.

Baller League MVP Leitner will play the Kings League in the future

And the tone between the Baller League and the Kings League in particular hasn’t always been entirely friendly in recent months.

“We reached out at some point, but it wasn’t accepted. We have been at war with the Spaniards in football for decades and will definitely not start making common cause with the Spaniards now,” said Baller League CEO Felix Starck at the beginning of the year.

Ex-Bundesliga professional Moritz Leitner, the MVP of the first Baller League season, is now part of the Kings League World Cup and the best-known name in the German team.

Moritz Leitner was named the best player in the Baller League in the first season.Image: imago images / Bahho Kara

In addition, Kings League inventor Gerard Piqué announced in a media round on Friday that the league will also exist in Germany in 2025.

“We are the original. We launched in January 2023 and if one format is successful, we also know that there are other competitions. “We know that there are similar projects, but we believe in our product, which we have already proven in other countries,” he said, referring to Icon League and Baller League. He did not give a specific date.

The Kings League currently exists in Spain, Italy, the USA, Mexico and Brazil.

Gerard Piqué reacted clearly to the Baller League boss

So are tensions with the Baller League inevitable in the fight for MVP players and streamers? When asked by Watson, the ex-Barça star was confused about Baller League boss Starck’s announcement.

The biggest competitors are not other sports or rival leagues anyway, but, according to Piqué, “Netflix, HBO, Amazon, Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram.” When competing with these players, the right balance between show elements and competitive strength is the key to success.

Team Germany also has a coach: Damir Agovic. His main job is head coach at Viktoria Aschaffenburg in the Bavarian Regional League; the 35-year-old previously coached the U19 team at Eintracht Frankfurt.

Kings League: Germany stacks deep – Piqué declares war

When it comes to declarations of war, the German team is remaining cautious for the time being for the World Cup. “Our first goal is to win the first game and then we want to win the next one too. Typically German, we just want to take it step by step“, says Moritz Leitner.

In addition to the two-time German champion, the best-known name in the team is probably Nick Salihamidžić, son of the ex-Bayern boss.

Barcelona legend Gerard Piqué is the inventor of the Kings League.Image: imago images / Matteo Secci

Gerard Piqué is more aggressive. Not in terms of the performance of the German team, but the start of the league in Germany. “I believe that we will be successful in Germany. They are passionate football fans and at the same time the streaming world is well developed. This gives us the ecosystem we want.

In his column, fan researcher Harald Lange writes exclusively on watson about the things that are currently affecting football in Germany.

UEFA is threatening competition in international club competitions. It was announced this week that agency A22 Sports Management submitted on Tuesday a “new proposal for pan-European club football competitions to gain official recognition from Uefa and Fifa.”