Kings League MENA has revealed its final two teams and the opening fixtures for Split 1 at its Unboxing Show, completing the competition’s 10-team lineup and setting up kickoff in Riyadh on Sept. 18. The league’s latest expansion adds two new Saudi Arabia team presidents, Raed of RA2 and Abdulrahman Alshahri of Rising Peaks, bringing Saudi representation to three teams alongside returning side DR7, led by Drb7h. The spectacle keeps growing. The power structure stays neatly packaged in team colors and celebrity branding.
The League Machine
Split 1 will run from Sept. 18 to Oct. 30 at Cool Arena, Riyadh Boulevard, and it is being sold as the regional competition’s first full-length season. Kings League MENA is expanding to 10 teams after the inaugural eight-team Kings Cup MENA in 2025, a format shift that turns a short launch event into a longer commercial run. Wael Al-Fayez, managing director of Kings League MENA, said: “MENA is one of the world’s most exciting and fast-growing sports and entertainment markets, and Split 1 marks a major new chapter for Kings League MENA.” He added: “With our first full championship season, 10 incredible teams, including three Saudi teams and presidents representing passionate communities from across the Arab world, we are ready to deliver an unforgettable experience both online and inside the arena.”
The language is polished. The machinery is plain. This is a regional sports product built around presidents, platforms, and broadcast partners, with the arena and the screen working together to turn fandom into a managed experience.
The opening matchdays include a rerun of the DR7 vs. FWZ final at the Kings Cup MENA last year. There is also a Jordanian derby between 3BS and Red Zone, with team co-presidents and Jordan national football team stars Yazan Al-Naimat (3BS) and Ali Olwan (Red Zone) going head-to-head. The competition’s structure is straightforward: a round-robin stage in which each of the 10 teams plays every other once across nine matchdays, then a top-placed team that advances directly to the semifinals, while the remaining semifinal places are decided by a three-match quarterfinal round.
Who Runs It, Who Watches It
Saudi Arabia is represented by DR7 led by Drb7h, RA2 by Raed, and Rising Peaks by Abdulrahman Alshahri. ABO FC (AboFlah) contest for Qatar, FWZ (Fwaz) for Kuwait, Turbo (Tarboun) for Egypt, Bakhira FC (Younes Zarou and Achraf Sabiri) and Ultra Chmicha (Ilyas Elmaliki) for Morocco, and 3BS (Absi) and Red Zone (Maherco) for Jordan. The league frames these as football markets and fan communities across the MENA region. It also folds them into a single branded competition with a clear hierarchy, from team presidents to official channels to broadcast partners.
Tickets went on sale on the WeBook platform on Saturday night during the Unboxing Show. Fans across the region can follow every match for free via the personal streaming channels of the team presidents and on Kings League MENA’s official channels, on Kick, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. Live match coverage will also be available through official broadcast partner MBC Group, across the MBC Action channel and Shahid streaming platform. Free access, of course, still runs through the same media pipeline. The audience gets choice. The platform gets control.
The Broadcast State
Kings League MENA is part of the Kings League’s global competitions, which include seven regional men’s leagues in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Spain. It also has two women’s Queens Leagues, in Mexico and Spain, and international tournaments including the Kings World Cup Clubs and Kings World Cup Nations. The model is global, franchised, and tightly managed. It doesn’t ask people to build anything from below. It sells them a ready-made arena, a roster of presidents, and a stream.
The competition culminates in the Final Four on Oct. 30, when both semifinals and the Final are played on the same day at Cool Arena. That’s the whole arrangement in one place: the teams, the schedule, the broadcast partners, the ticketing platform, the official channels, and the arena. The rest is branding, and the branding is doing a lot of work.