In a very short time, the numbers in the Queens and Kings League have skyrocketed. This 7v7 football competition, which incorporates the rules and dynamics typical of board and video games, already has more than 15 million followers on social networks. As of January 2023, more than 400,000 devices per day have already been merged, with more than one person behind each screen. Last season's final saw a historic high of 2.16 million devices connected to the Camp Nou broadcast, which was watched by more than 90,000 people in the stadium.
These numbers don't happen on conventional television, but on Twitch, Amazon's live broadcast platform. The appeal of some of its main supporters, such as streamer Ibai Llanos and footballer Gerard Piqué, partly explains the phenomenon.
Twitch primarily broadcasts content from YouTubers who record themselves with a camera from their bedroom. To meet the audiovisual ambitions of the Queens and Kings League, which multiplies audio and visual sources by placing subjective cameras and microphones on referees, coaches and even in the presidential box, its managers have hired a historical television director. Álex Miñana, the man who for years directed the broadcasts of two live classics such as Crónicas marcianas (Telecinco, from 1997 to 2005) and El Hormiguero (from its premiere on Cuatro in 2006 to 2016, now on Antena 3). “I assume they wanted to reinforce in me the aspect of spectacle that would make this new sports broadcast more attractive and surprising,” Miñana said by phone in mid-February.
Ondas Award for Best Entertainment
With a four-person team in the control room and the technical means typical of the Champions League, Miñana tries to ensure that the overstimulated gaze of the young audience never gets boring. He orchestrates the eight powered cameras and the 15 fixed cameras that are part of a standard game of this new sport. “There are even drones in the finale,” he says. Los Ondas recognized it as the best entertainment program of the year in its 2023 edition.
“It is a show that has grown very quickly and has not yet reached its limits on a technological level. Now we are exploring augmented reality and ways to display live data and statistics of the game,” says the director. In both the women's and men's modalities, the Queens and Kings League, 12 teams compete, led by social media stars such as DjMaRiiO (1.4 million followers on Twitch alone) and Lluna Clark (the million views on TikTok generated) or by athletes like Iker Casillas. Interest was so great that Cuatro broadcast some of their meetings in the first season.
Control room for a Kings League game. Manuel Queimadelos (Manuel Queimadelos/Quality Sport Images/Kings League)
Its emissions don't stop growing. The competition in Spain is already running in 2024. And at the end of February, parallel to the national competition, the Kings League Americas began, in which 18 presidents from 10 different countries will lead the 12 teams in a competition based in Ciudad from Mexico, among others United States to Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela. In addition, 2024 will be the year of the Kings World Cup, a two-week world championship next summer, with 32 participating teams from Spain and America, as well as several guests to discover.
Miñana himself, the closest he has come to a career as a sports director was his involvement in the 1992 Olympics and Ninja Warrior, the Yellow Humor-style physical skill competition, is not a regular football watcher. He says he finds it boring. That's why he enjoys the infinite number of moves and resources he has to deal with in a live Queens and Kings League game that does not follow the official rules of the International Football Association (FIFA). In their case, trainers can make unlimited changes and have a secret weapon that they can reveal at any time.
All these unexpected events of this new sports competition remind him of his time in El Hormiguero. He was in the Pablo Motos program from day one, when he had not yet made the jump from Cuatro to Antena 3, and remained behind the camera for ten seasons. “It's a format where you have to learn something new every day on the go, because now you have to send out a hologram instead of conducting a scientific experiment.” It was purely a trial-and-error process, always making sure that that there were as few errors as possible. In both cases, they are formats that allow taking risks and trying new things, which is often not the case on television, with very closed patterns,” says Miñana.
In the well-known Mars Chronicles by Javier Sardá it was claimed from the first day to the last. “I am not in favor of following the rules that set the guidelines of the script to the letter. I prefer if the program is only broadcast at certain times. And in The Martian Chronicles we didn't pay much attention to the leader. We rehearsed in the afternoon, but what happened later live was something completely different. This continuous improvisation gave the film life and captivated the viewer,” defends the television director.
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