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esports
Ibai Llanos on how the LaLiga FIFA 20 Challenge took Twitch by storm
Esports streamer Ibai Llanos set up a FIFA charity tournament that took Twitch by storm with 180k concurrent viewers and raised more than €140,000 for charity. Here's how it happened.
While the football season may be postponed, the action has far from stalled thanks to Esports streamer Ibai Llanos. The Spaniard's passion for the game was once again shown, as he launched the FIFA 20 LaLiga Santander Challenge, which pitted professional footballers against each other on the game in the name of charity. It quickly blew up and soon became one of the biggest streams on Twitch.
The tournament, which started life as a tweet, hit 180,000 concurrent viewers and was televised live in Spain and China. Not only that, Llanos's original aim of raising €100,000 was absolutely smashed.
For those who don't know him, Llanos began his career as a commentator, broadcasting League of Legends bronze matches. Together with his friend Ander, he progressed to professional commentary and the star has broadcast many European and world LVP (Liga de Videojuegos Profesional – Professional Video Game League) competitions.
His career progressed rapidly due to his work in social media and streaming, so Llanos decided to go further and began to organise an online league. "I've loved the Spanish league since I was a child," says Llanos. "I was a fan of many teams, I've been in several premier league stadiums, where I've watched more than a thousand matches in my life. Whenever my job allows me, I follow all premier league football."
"The idea of organising this charity tournament came from two room-mates. If I'm not mistaken, Reven and BarbeQ told me about it. Then I saw a tweet from one of my followers, who also mentioned it. The truth is that it happened quite naturally; I posted a tweet and immediately all La Liga teams reacted."
Llanos currently has 1.3 million followers on Twitter, plus a million on Instagram. His Twitch channel has almost 520,000 followers and around 7,000 subscribers, so it should come as no surprise that the response was so positive.
Everybody liked the idea, players, clubs and La Liga, so they contacted me
"Everybody liked the idea, players, clubs and La Liga, so they contacted me," he recalls. "Many premier league players follow me on social media, so that helped me to contact them privately. La Liga also got involved and helped me with the event, the graphics, streaming and, of course, they donated €100,000."
The event kicked off last Friday, with the opening rounds and the finals took place on Sunday. Rubén Martín helped Llanos to broadcast the tournament. "Personally, what I liked the most was that I worked with Manolo Lama. I was very excited," Llanos says. "I don't know what people think about it, but I loved it, because I've listened to Manolo for many years. Having the opportunity to work with the football commentators was one of the best moments of the weekend."
Marco Asensio steps up to star online
"I was stoked with the matches and we even had a very nice extra time between Atlético and Real Sociedad," says Llanos. "Marco Asensio scored in all the rounds and I think he was the great player of the week."
The best players were Sergio Reguillón (Sevilla), Borja Iglesias (Betis) and Marco Asensio (Real Madrid). This team beat Leganés 4–1. It's known that the Majorcan is passionate about video games and he didn't let anybody down. "Marco Asensio surprised everybody," Llanos explains. "I thought Lucas Pérez (Alavés) was going to win, or Carlos Cler (Levante). I didn't expect Asensio to win that way. We couldn't believe what we saw."
A lot of people have seen the human side of the players and many players told me they wanted to repeat the experience
Llanos believes the event was a success, but that it will likely be a one-off for now. "We tried to do it the best way we could to raise as much money as possible. It was a success, because it was something unique," he explains. "A lot of people have seen the human side of the players and many players told me they wanted to repeat the experience, but I would like to leave it like this. Maybe we could do something else at a later date, because the state of alarm is going to last a long time. The players and the clubs are happy with the result and they would like to continue."
