I have written about potential rivals of BTS quite a few times, and had to conclude that IU is BTS' greatest rival, even though she is a soloist and does not compete against it apparently.
Since BTS is the undoubtable #1 of Pop on the world, I have to put IU as the #2 of Pop on the entire GLOBE, although she appears to be not too well known in Europe as seen this year's Cannes ceremony.
The reason is IU is the last major singer on earth who has refused to acknowledge the superiority of BTS, since she did watch BTS when it was a nobody like this
IU became KPop's Senior Singer when BTS was just about to finish its struggle to gain a place in the sun. That explains why she is not afraid of BTS and does everything in her power to undermine it whenever she can. I will have more to write about the eternal struggle between BTS and IU since they represent two diametrically opposite, and incompatible, philosophies.
But, I have said a few times that if YG had played his (not its!) cards correctly BP, not IU, would have been the #2 of the world.
BP is arguably one of the biggest celebrities of the world and it could have become bigger.
I had shown that the awards Lalisa and Roseanne Park received last year combined would have put BP at #3 of the world's most awarded artists, and because YG didn't do that, neither of them made the top #9 while enabling IU to take the #8 position.
But YG did nothing. Even now there are just rumors, and no real sign, of a BP album while BP's greatest rival , IU (she is basically the rival of everyone else in Korean Pop) , is trying to flex muscles around the world
I wish BP would have gotten bigger so it would have formed a real rivalry, since although IU is #2 in the world next to BTS, the gap is quite big and she has no reach in the western world.
BP would have impressed the entire western world and YG would have created a rivalry similar to the Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry of the 17th and 18th century, which only ended when the last emperor of the Habsburgs married a Bourbon princess in 1911, 7 years before the end of the Habsburgs.
Instead of making BP the #2 act of the world, YG did - nothing.
Now BP's re-signing is just around the corner and there are still no plans. The non-use of BP will be recorded as the greatest lost opportunity in the history of pop.
How their rivalry might have progressed