Our Take on the King’s League’s €60M Investment and the record media rights extension between Canal+ and Top 14 Rugby
Just like that, another month of 2024 is behind us. Gerard Piqué, former FC Barcelona footballer and legend, announced the US expansion of his innovative sports format - The Kings League, following a €60M investment. In the European sports ecosystem, very few media rights agreements have withstood the test of time and delivered a consistently solid product like Canal + has over its two-decade-long association with Rugby’s premier league, Top 14. Predicting further mutual growth, the two parties announced an extension stretching to 2032 in May.
In this piece, we provide insights on both these developments and their anticipated impact.
Gerard Piqué’s seven-a-side Kings League gets massive investment, plans U.S. expansion
The Kings League only launched in 2023, but it just got 60 million Euros in funding and has major international expansion planned.
🔎 Our Take:
This news highlights the true potential of innovation and a new sports format when executed correctly. The Kings League has, with evident success, evolved the centuries-old sport of football into a pure brand of entertainment while retaining the sport's fundamental rules and values. Founded in 2022, the league has already secured a €60 million investment for international expansion, showcasing its capacity to further add a new dimension to football.
What truly distinguishes the King's League is its unique and intelligent growth strategy. The league has engaged current and former professional football stars as team presidents and players, leveraging their brands to promote the league and ensure the quality of the competition. Notable signings like Sergio Aguero, Neymar Jr., Mario Gotze, and, most recently, Zlatan Ibrahimovic further enhance the league's appeal.
However, the true innovation of the King's League lies in its distribution model. By incorporating streamers as players or coaches, they tap into the youth market, who are inclined to watch the latest piece of content, which happens to be live-streamed by these streamers, who they follow on a regular basis.
With matches being streamed live on platforms like Twitch and TikTok, the league's distribution essentially eliminates the need for a pay-TV subscription, making it highly accessible for young audiences globally. This strategy enabled the league to amass over 800,000 views for its first match in January 2023, effectively opening the doors to significant advertisements as a means to monetise this viewership.
In just a year since its inception, the Kings League recorded higher viewership than La Liga and the Premier League on TikTok, making it the most-watched football league on the platform. With TikTok being used by over 150 million users in the United States, this expansion aligns perfectly with the league's product-market fit, making it relevant not only because of the language but also due to its systemic alignment with the location where it aims to grow.
With innovative and entertaining rules, along with strong coherence with the creator economy, the Kings League offers great value to fans as a fast-paced, global sports entertainment ecosystem. This investment could lay the foundation for successful international expansion as the league currently is predominantly Spanish-centric. It would be interesting to see how the league captures the Asian market in the near future by capitalising on the large streaming ecosystem that already exists in the region.
Key takeaways
Distributing matches free on Twitch and TikTok instead of behind a pay-TV subscription is what let a brand-new format out-perform established leagues on those platforms within a year.
Signing streamers as players and coaches, not just as promotional partners, ties the competition directly into an audience that already watches those creators daily.
A large funding round for a two-year-old format is a bet that the same playbook, familiar faces and free distribution to a young, creator-native audience, can travel beyond its Spanish-speaking base.
FAQ
What does the Kings League's growth mean for traditional leagues competing for young fans' attention?
It shows that a new format built around free streaming and creator involvement can out-perform established leagues on platforms like TikTok within a year of launching. Traditional leagues relying only on pay-TV distribution risk losing that younger audience to formats built for how they already watch content.Why has the Kings League grown faster on TikTok than La Liga and the Premier League?
Streaming matches for free on Twitch and TikTok removes the need for a pay-TV subscription, and involving streamers as players and coaches taps directly into audiences that already follow those creators daily. That combination helped the league record higher viewership on TikTok than either established competition within its first year.What challenges does the Kings League face in expanding into the US market?
The league is currently Spanish-centric, so building recognition and relevance for a new audience, including navigating a different creator ecosystem, is a bigger task than the domestic growth it has already achieved. Its €60 million investment is intended to fund exactly that kind of international expansion.
Canal+ agrees record €696.8m extension to show French Top 14 rugby until 2032
Deal is worth €139.4m a season, maintaining competition’s status as most lucrative domestic league in the sport.
🔎 Our Take:
Canal+ and French Top 14 Rugby, partners since 1998, have agreed to extend their media rights agreement until 2032, with the new deal coming into effect in 2027 and offering a 14.7% revenue increase to the latter. This long-standing partnership has delivered significant dividends for both parties. The 2023 Top 14 Final, watched by 1.18 million viewers, marked the highest viewership for a Top 14 final in nine years. Such robust audience engagement translates into increased revenue opportunities for Canal+ through advertisements and new subscriptions. By offering premium content like Top 14 rugby, Canal+ enhances its value proposition to customers, securing steady revenue streams.
What sets this partnership apart is Canal+'s consistent efforts to shape the storytelling narrative of Rugby and the LNR in France. By introducing engaging features such as 'User-generated content', documentaries, and other innovative sub-content forms, Canal+ offers more than just the live sporting experience to a fan.
The success of these initiatives has hinged on the extensive period of time that it has worked on broadcasting the sport in the country, which ultimately begs the question: what is the trade-off between acquiring a more lucrative contract from a new player and trusting your existing partner who has an acute understanding of your viewers and what content to deliver?
Unlike the fragmented media rights landscape, particularly in football, the collaboration between Canal+ and Top 14 has fostered stability and holistic growth. This consistent exposure on Canal+ has elevated the league's profile, attracting a broader audience and increasing sponsorship opportunities.
The agreement extension until 2032 ensures Canal+ remains the home of Top 14 rugby, reflecting confidence in the partnership's continued success. This long-term deal provides both parties a stable foundation to innovate and expand their strategies further.
Key takeaways
Renewing with an existing broadcaster instead of running a competitive tender shows a league valuing continuity and shared understanding of its audience over the chance of a marginally bigger one-off offer from a new bidder.
A long-running partnership pays off in more than the rights fee. Canal+'s investment in documentaries and other original content around Top 14 has helped grow the competition's profile in ways a short-term deal would not.
Rising viewership and a real-terms revenue increase in the same renewal shows the relationship compounding in value over time, rather than the broadcaster simply defending an existing position.
FAQ
What does the Canal+ and Top 14 rugby extension mean for leagues deciding between a long-term broadcaster and a competitive rights tender?
It shows that staying with a broadcaster who understands the audience and invests in storytelling around the competition, not just live coverage, can keep growing a league's value over decades. Top 14 secured a 14.7% revenue increase within a stable, long-term relationship rather than through a disruptive rights auction.How much is Canal+'s new rugby rights deal with Top 14 worth?
The extension is worth €696.8 million in total, or €139.4 million a season, running from 2027 to 2032 and keeping Top 14 the most lucrative domestic league in rugby.What has driven rising viewership for Top 14 rugby under its Canal+ partnership?
Canal+ has built original content, such as documentaries and behind-the-scenes features, around the competition, not just broadcast the matches themselves. That approach helped the 2023 Top 14 final draw 1.18 million viewers, the highest figure in nine years.
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