Yeah, I immediately thought about this, here's why, I got some 'inside' info actually.
In a nutshell:
I know the Spanish version was launched a few months ago as a test market. If the test market went fine and people showed interest they'd expand it over to other countries, starting with Portugal I believe. Otherwise the whole thing would just be thrown to the garbage bin.
Well, people definitely showed interest in Spain, as Portugal's league did go forward after the Spanish test, and kicked off just a month ago (
https://ligaplaystation.pt/).
So Italy is probably the next market they're launching on, followed by more local launches throughout the year.
It's not something that's out of this world, but I do definitely think it's a good idea and hope it has success so they can integrate further with the console in the future. Edit: As to the 'new concept', it's a concept similar to Gamebattles, if anyone remembers that, so I don't really think it's new per se, but hey, it's marketing I guess..
This is still a wild guess on my part, it could be something else, but I actually think it really is just Playstation League.