Soccer Reinvented: Alternative Tournaments Conquer New Audiences
The atmosphere in London’s Copper Box Arena was more reminiscent of a nightclub than Old Trafford. The music thundered while former Manchester United midfielder Josh Harrop entered an atmosphere similar to a concert. The referee tossed the ball into the air, a horn sounded, and influencers recorded videos with their phones a few meters from the touchline.
Harrop, now a free agent, had barely glanced at the Baller League regulations before signing. He quickly realized that what he had signed up for was nothing like the Premier League, nor anything he had played before.
“Once the game started, I thought, ‘Jesus, what’s going on here?’. This is chaos,” commented Harrop, who scored on the first day for FC Rules the World. “But as the weeks have gone by, I’ve learned the rules. It’s easier to adapt.”
Josh Harrop
The Baller League, which boasts an eclectic cast of coaches such as Portuguese legend Luis Figo, British rapper and actor Dave, English international Chloe Kelly, and the streamer Angryginge, is one of the alternative football tournaments that have emerged in recent years.
The Baller League is a spin-off of the successful Kings and Queens Leagues, initiated by Barcelona and Spain legend, Gerard Piqué. It is part of a growing trend of new football events that move away from the traditional game. There’s also The Soccer Tournament (TST), an event with a million-dollar prize for the winner, and the debut this year of the World Sevens Football for women’s teams.
Most are small-sided soccer matches, with a maximum of 7-a-side, with rules ranging from mimicking full-field soccer to unusual twists designed to add drama and go viral online. These policies range from “target scores” (the leading team’s score plus one, ensuring all matches end with goals that actually decide the game, rather than a clock) to double-value goals, the awarding of random penalties, and even the ability of teams to steal players from each other.
The million-dollar question is: Why create these new competitions and abandon the proven model of the most powerful sport in the world? Are these extravagant, star-studded tournaments the future of football?
Content is King for New Soccer Tournaments
All the organizations behind these tournaments shared two common goals. First, they believe they are complementary to conventional soccer, and traditional soccer fans can enjoy these new twists. Second, they consider themselves an alternative programming for content-hungry fans, particularly Generation Z and younger, a demographic that, in theory, consumes sports mainly through short clips on their phones.
Soccer follows the broader trend of sports in an effort to stand out in an increasingly crowded and fragmented market. The Unrivaled three-on-three basketball competition, which launched earlier this year as an off-season complement to the WNBA, uses alternative rules such as a final period with no time for teams to reach a winning score. The PGA Tour has a similar equivalent, The Golf League, which has ushered in an era of stadiums that implements virtual reality, the most radical innovation in a sport that is hundreds of years old.
Executives across the football landscape see a similar opportunity to capture a young audience they believe is less likely to engage with traditional football, where scoring is low and matches often end in draws. Kings League CEO Djamel Agaoua, a former tech executive who recalls his son asking him, “What’s happening now?” after watching a 0-0 draw of his childhood team, Marseille, said it’s “a great moment of disruption.”
“The young generation… is exposed to much more content. Technology allowed them to navigate this content very easily,” said Agaoua. “They can simply swipe up and go from content they like, to content they love, to content they don’t like, and then they can make decisions like that in seconds.”
Djamel Agaoua
Newton Pride FC players celebrate after winning the inaugural TST edition in 2023.
Courtesy of The Soccer Tournament
Part of that process involves specifically having smartphones in mind during the production of Kings League matches, rather than television. According to Ofcom, in a 2024 survey, smartphone ownership for children in the UK reached 97% by the age of 12, and in the United States, the Pew Research Center reported that 95% of teenagers own a smartphone. According to data sent by Kings League, from January 2024 to January 2025, 80% of their audience was under 34 years old.
“Sports have been funded for decades by traditional media, by television, and television has the challenge of looking at the audience,” said Agaoua.
Djamel Agaoua
Similar conversations are being discussed in women’s football. The World Sevens Football debuted last week as a seven-a-side competition featuring eight professional European women’s clubs competing for a striking total prize of $5 million. Aly Wagner, head of strategy for World Sevens Football and former U.S. international, said the concept leans towards sport as entertainment.
“What do we know about this younger demographic today? They consume sports differently, they do,” Wagner said. “The attention span is not the same and therefore these moments will be, you know, shareable moments across all kinds of social media which, again, will hopefully accelerate the growth of women’s soccer.”
Aly Wagner
“This is the type of content that this younger demographic really consumes.”
Before the start of a Kings League match in 2023, the popular streamer Ibai speaks with a masked player who was later revealed to be former Manchester City striker Sergio Agüero.
Cesc Maymo/Getty Images
While other new competitions focus on former players and influencers, the World Sevens Football trusts that current top-level professional players will drive participation. With the participation of teams like Bayern Munich, Manchester City, and Paris Saint-Germain, the competition evokes scenes of a mini UEFA Women’s Champions League tournament, and in fact offers more prize money than the UWCL, which was decided a day later in Lisbon, when Arsenal defeated Barcelona 1-0.
The scope is broader elsewhere for alternative soccer, with participants ranging from retired Premier League veterans to current stars from the non-soccer universe. At this summer’s TST, 40-year-old Anton Ferdinand, who played 163 matches for West Ham, will don the club’s uniform as a player-coach, earning minutes with British actor Hero Fiennes Tiffin.
“I have my own children, so I understand the new generation. They want to see these types of people, they want to see influencers playing football,” Ferdinand said. “For me, my children see me playing with influencers, my children love it.
Anton Ferdinand
“When I was younger, Premier League footballers were the influencers in terms of how you were received. The influencers now are the celebrities of the world.”
In the Kings League and the Queens League, the club presidents, ranging from former professionals to an influencer like Ibai Llanos with 13.1 million subscribers on YouTube, can enter the matches to take penalty kicks. It’s a blurred line between entertainment and sport, and for a series of players with more humble resumes who populate these tournaments, the experience can be strange but remarkable.
“I was able to see these people I used to see on television up close. I saw Sergio ‘Kun’ Agüero,” said Miraash Imthiyaz, a player for the Kings League’s Aniquiladores FC, whose career has taken him through the lower leagues of Spain. “I used to watch him because I watched a lot of the Premier League because I’m an Arsenal fan, so seeing him score a goal five meters away from me, and then celebrate, was something that will stay in my head.”
Miraash Imthiyaz
An Alternative Path to Football Stardom
Just as young fans seek out these alternative football tournaments, the same could be said of names like Imthiyaz who didn’t reach the heights of an Agüero. Looking across TST, Baller League, Kings League and Queens League, the lifeblood of these tournaments are lesser-known names who are still chasing their sporting dreams.
“I’ve been playing football all my life, like traditional football, and there are a lot of people who played and not everyone reaches the top category or professional levels due to many, many different circumstances,” said Imthiyaz.
Miraash Imthiyaz
EPA/Enric Fontcuberta
There’s a story of underdogs built for these players who can then shine on an uncommon platform. TST founder and CEO Jon Mugar highlighted that they don’t want to showcase only professional clubs or stars in the 64-team competition that will begin in early June, stating: “Higher-profile players, up-and-coming players. We want a mix of all these different types.”
“We know this would not be the event we are looking for if it were all Premier League teams, or all MLS teams, or all recreational teams, we want a mix of all of the above so that it represents a cross-section of the sport,” Mugar said.
Jon Mugar
In last year’s edition of TST, the one million dollar prize went to La Bombonera, a group of mostly experienced futsal players, another variation of soccer played on turf inside a hockey rink, which has a modest following of only 1,968 on Instagram. The amateur team Newtown Pride won the first edition in 2023, also with futsal players in their squad.
In the UK, Harrop’s coach, Eva Kray Batousol, has noticed that the younger generation, who might not have thought twice about their lower league players, are suddenly wearing Baller League jerseys.
“Obviously, their favorite players are [Erling] Haaland and all these kinds of guys, and now you see kids walking around with Baller League jerseys. That’s also something amazing,” said Batousol. “As a kid, if I don’t make it to the Premier League, to League Two, for example, I know I have a path in the lower leagues, I could potentially go play in the Baller League along with playing in the lower leagues.”
Eva Kray Batousol
1:02 American women celebrate after winning the $1 million prize at TST.
The American women defeated NC Courage 6-3 in The Soccer Tournament, claiming the $1 million prize and unleashing wild celebrations.
South of the border, in Mexico, Kenne Kessler, a former college player and Villarreal de Texas player who joined the Queens League Americas, also highlighted her unique opportunity. Last Saturday, during a championship final, Kessler scored in an eventual 2-1 victory for Las Galácticas del Caribe at the Estadio Luis ‘Pirata’ Fuente, a remodeled stadium that once housed the now-defunct Club Deportivo Veracruz of the Liga MX.
Along with a Kings League Americas final that was also held in the stadium, the event has so far accumulated over 1.5 million views on the tournament’s YouTube stream.“I’ve played in many different countries, places, and scenarios over the last few years, but this one was a bit different,” Kessler said. “There were streamers and cameras everywhere. There were eyes on you at all times.”
Kenne Kessler
“I love that it’s broadcast on YouTube, so basically anyone around the world can watch our matches,” said Veronica Pérez, a Queens League player and former professional in the Liga MX Femenil and the NWSL. “That brand, the marketing, is more visible.”
Veronica Pérez
Welcome to the New Future of Football?
With a mix of eye-catching prize money figures, viral attention on social media, and a strong attraction for a younger fan base, are these alternative tournaments the future of football? And could they one day surpass traditional models?
“In the Kings League, we don’t believe for a second that we are going to replace traditional football, not a fraction of a millisecond,” said Agaoua. “We are not going to replace [Lamine Yamal], [Kylian Mbappé] and all those guys. I mean, not even in our dreams.”
Djamel Agaoua
“At first, I’d say traditional football saw us as a competitor, but now they understand that we’re not directly competing. Actually, we’re providing something alternative and bringing new fans to the football ecosystem.”
Former FC Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué launched the Kings League in 2023.
Manuel Queimadelos/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images
The feeling was similar for Wagner with the World Sevens Football.
“The opportunity is really to have a solution that is incrementally beneficial, that is additive to the current landscape of women’s soccer,” said the former American player about the tournament that could open new markets. “One thinks about the way fans fall in love with teams, sports, and players, it’s really through those moments of great entertainment.”
Aly Wagner
Harrop, now recognized in public for the viral videos of the Baller League, also doesn’t believe that these alternatives will replace the Premier League or the league system, but he was direct in talking about what the main competitions can learn from these latest new ventures.
In line with the freedom that new tournaments have with their experimental rules and formats, there is also a freedom for players to show more of their character in a social media-led context, which can be refreshing compared to the more sterile environment of a traditional league.
0:56 La Bombonera defeats Nani FC to win 1 million dollars in TST.
La Bombonera players celebrate after defeating Nani FC 4-0 and winning $1 million in The Soccer Tournament.
“I am a big soccer fan, but I lost interest in watching it so much, because the matches are very, very boring and dry.”“I definitely think what’s missing from normal football now is personality, in terms of players being able to be themselves,” Harrop said. “You see an interview now after a game and it’s very media-trained, it was all the game, the game was good, thanks to the away fans. It’s the same…”
Josh Harrop
In these alternative leagues, the formula isn’t just about an entertaining product on the field, but about being authentic in ways that would be considered too risky or brazen for most top-tier competitions. Whether from the competitions themselves or from the rule-makers like the International Football Association Board, there are few incentives for radical change, so the status quo rarely changes.
The old-school leaders of the game have resisted and belittled the new tournaments. LaLiga president Javier Tebas called the Kings League a “circus” in 2023, saying it shouldn’t be compared to football.
It is highly unlikely that the momentum will suddenly shift away from traditional football anytime in the future, but if significant changes do occur, they could be spearheaded or influenced by the handful of new competitions that are beginning to gain traction.
“It really depends on the challengers like us to carry out any kind of bold and innovative ideas,” Mugar said. “The fans, I think, appreciate it.”
Jon Mugar
