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In a Twitch chat, during Sunday’s Kings League semifinal game, some messages popped up saying something like: “This game has less tempo than the other.” But then came the dice moment: a giant dice decided how many players could play the last two minutes of the first part. Two came out, so each team pulled out five and immediately came the goals and the fun.
As a spectator, on a Sunday afternoon, despite not favoring any team in particular, despite watching football with good but not great players, it was easy to keep watching the games. Something is always happening or about to happen: the boss’s penalty, the coach’s message, VAR, a goal. It was hard to give up or get lost: your attention as a spectator was required. The segments are 20 minutes long, and coaches and referees are heard with microphones and on camera. Football was football without more, but the always-on show was pure TikTok.
It’s probably no coincidence that in February, the Kings League was the second league in the world with the most views on TikTok, behind only the NFL in the Superbowl month. Baseball in the United States made four changes this year to reduce playing time and increase movement:
A college student, a humble A-Team fan, told me this week that he hadn’t watched the Kings League, the 7-team football tournament led by former soccer player Gerard Pique and with twelve teams headed by them. streamers Famous. “This is not like football,” the student said, in a tone between resignation and defiance. It’s a tune we’ve all heard at some point when someone defends conventions: black-and-white movies, or that Queen was really a music, or that quiet life without digital shocks. The same is not as pure as before, but perhaps it is more fun and special at this time.
Of course, as in all things, all options will coexist. The World Cup or the Champions League will continue to be a cultural and sporting phenomenon. But whoever rejects ideas like the League of Kings should know that the attention span of new generations is indeed different.
contracts process
TikTok is just the culmination of a decades-long process of film and video footage getting shorter. Kings League is specifically designed to seduce attention focused on persistent allegations.
Between 1930 and 2010, the average shot duration in cinema (and also on television from the 1950s) went from roughly 14 seconds to barely 4 seconds. This data is taken from the book Attention ability, by Gloria Mark, Professor at the University of California (Soon to be published in Spanish by Urano Editions). Marc dedicates a chapter to the rhythm of audiovisual production, from movies to TikTok: “We live so immersed in a fast-paced media environment 10 hours a day that it’s hard not to have our attention span affected. It’s not just the content that influences us, but also building. How is it possible that our attention span has not been affected by this excessive use of these media?
Professor Mark doesn’t know if it was the decrease in attention span or the fast-paced videos that came first. But there is only one conclusion: “We are in a cycle where our attention span diminishes and culture in turn adapts and creates conditions that shorten our attention span.”
This is the trick the Kings League has used: it has taken one of the greatest entertainments in the world, football, and turned it into TikTok, tailored to all of us who have been consuming fast-paced content for decades. If you love football and here they give you more stimulation, then it will probably be good for you too. maybe more.
Mark calls it a “cultural evolution” and treats it as something that happens and there is no going back. Just as it makes no sense to teach TikTok to a 1900 citizen, our brains have adapted to this world. He has few choices: “Our attention span shapes the media, and the media, in turn, shapes our attention.” The cadence of action and shots could never be the same. The advantage of Kings League is that there is already an audience for a piece of football.
There are two other important details that Kings League has copied from TikTok and other networks: one is obvious, streamers Celebrities will be the protagonists. Second, less obvious, everything will be guaranteed to be talked about and talked about transparently. The more micros, discussions, absurdity, and naturalness between the characters, the better.
stunt mode streamers that their audience already enjoys is nothing new: Ibai evenings or contests in Minecraft or other video games already do. Funnily enough, however, the hero, Adri Contreras, is the only tiktoker. to streamers From Twitch, the latest have eaten their snack.
Regarding transparency, in an interview with EL PAÍS, Pique said: “Football clubs protect the players a lot, they don’t let them go out of line and the message is always the same. We are backwards. We are open and the more we are in the nets the better. Even if it is This content is not football In itself. In football there is a lack of information. Clubs will have to open up, although it will be difficult for them because they want to control what comes out. If they don’t, they will lose fans.” Although he cheats by making the presidents the champions, not the coaches or the players.
The audience mainly came for streamers, but then it stayed because it had good content, made people laugh, and passed quickly. This is not nonsense.
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