Baller League will no longer show its six-a-side football matches on Sky Sports.
The UK edition, launched in March 2025, features star managers including England footballer Chloe Kelly and YouTubers KSI and Angry Ginge.
The league will continue broadcasting matches on Twitch, YouTube and TikTok, but BBC Newsbeat has confirmed its contract with the broadcaster has not been renewed, as first reported by the Guardian, external.
In a statement, Baller League chief executive Felix Starck said Sky Sports was "always framed as an add-on to our strategy, not the centre of it".
Starck pushed back against any suggestion the event had been "dropped" by Sky.
"We're not dependent on a traditional broadcaster to deliver an audience to us; we reach our audience directly," he said in a statement.
Starck further claimed that more than 90% of Baller League's audience watches online, and that viewing figures had increased by two-thirds "season-on-season".
Baller League UK's second season attracted a total of about 9.1m YouTube livestreams, while its most recent third season reached about 12m. This represents an increase of about 32% on one platform, but does not take into account live viewing figures on TikTok or Twitch, which are not readily available.
Although Sky is the biggest UK sports broadcaster, Starck said "the audience we're built for isn't the audience they're reaching".
Baller League, first launched in Germany, brings together ex-pros, creators and rising players in 30-minute games with twists on traditional football rules. Starck previously told BBC Sport the format was more popular with 16 to 28-year-olds than the Premier League, although it's difficult to double-check the claim. The chief executive has also pointed to the lower cost of tickets and the ability to watch matches without a paid subscription as plus-points for the brand.
Sky Sports declined to provide a comment, but Newsbeat understands it was happy with Baller League's audience numbers and social media engagement, and that the partnership came to a natural end.
Baller League superfan Freddie Rippingale, 21, tells Newsbeat he agrees with Starck's assessment and thinks the tournament can succeed without Sky. He watches on YouTube and says most people he knows do the same, or watch on the streaming platform Twitch.
For Rippingale, it's appointment viewing.
"Six-a-side football doesn't get enough credit for how fast-paced and good it actually is," he says.
"Some people don't give it the time to understand the rules and get to know it.
"But I love it and I won't have a bad word said about it."
