Fan Controlled Football

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Fan Controlled Football
Most recent season or competition:
2021 Fan Controlled Football season
Fan Controlled Football Logo.png
SportIndoor football
Founded2017
FounderFANchise, LLC
Inaugural season2021
CEOSohrob Farudi
CommissionerRay Austin
No. of teams4
CountryUnited States
Most recent
champion(s)		Wild Aces
(2021)
TV partner(s)Twitch and VENN
Related
competitions		Indoor Football League
Official websiteFCF.io

Fan Controlled Football (FCF) is a professional indoor football league created in 2017 as the first sports league controlled by fans.[1][2] All games are played at the Infinite Energy Arena in Duluth, Georgia and broadcast on Twitch and VENN.

It was created by Project Fanchise, who established the first fan-controlled professional sports franchise, the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, and operated the Colorado Crush to play in the Indoor Football League in 2017 before Fanchise pulled both teams out of the league.[3]

Players are paid weekly minimum of $400 to $750 plus room and board, while coaches get paid $3,500 per month with housing and meal plan.[4] FCF CEO Sohrob Farudi confirmed in March 2021 that the league planned to play two seasons a year, one in the spring and one in the fall,[5] and has plans to expand to 20 teams by year five.[6]

History[]

The idea, then known as Project Franchise, was covered by The New York Times with the business concept of a fan-controlled baseball team in 2008, but was written as satirical piece by comedian Steve Hofstetter.[7] At the time, the project was just a website created by Grant Cohen with investors consisting of lawyers such as Joe Scura. In 2010, a GOOD Magazine article described the group's business plan, including asking fans to invest in creating or purchasing a minor league baseball team to become publicly owned and operated.[8] The project ultimately failed when purchasing an existing team proved to carry too much debt.[9] In June 2015, an Arena Football League team minority owner, Sohrob Farudi, read about the dead project and contacted Cohen about restarting the concept as Project Fanchise.[9]

In April 2016, Project Fanchise purchased an expansion team in the Indoor Football League for the 2017 season. The group created a mobile app for subscribed fans to vote on naming the team, chose its colors, and hire a coach before the season started. The team became the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, and when the team began to play, the fans chose plays for the team to run.[10] The experience successfully proved the concept of fans controlling the team, but it did not equate to success on the field finishing with a 5–11 record. Fanchise had also acquired the Colorado Crush just prior to the start of the season but did not implement the system at that time. On April 20, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Project Fanchise was planning on launching a new league called the "Interactive Football League".[11] Project Fanchise CEO Sohrob Farudi confirmed that the Screaming Eagles and Crush would finish the 2017 season.[12] Project Fanchise folded both teams after the season and began the process to create the new league.

After a few months of being known as the Interactive Football League, it rebranded as the Electronic Football League (eFL),[13] before settling on Fan Controlled Football in November 2017.[12] The league planned to play all of its games in only one city with eight new teams. All games would be played in one location, Las Vegas, with fans calling plays while watching on-line via Twitch.[12] The initial start date was for the 2018 season but was postponed. It has since garnered the backing of professional athletes including former and current NFL players Chad Johnson, Marshawn Lynch, and Richard Sherman.[14] The league then gained backing by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Verizon Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Basecamp 2, Next10 Ventures, Bleacher Report co-founder Dave Finnocchio and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian[15] and additional team owners including Mike Tyson, Miro, Trevor May, Quavo,[16] Greg Miller, Deestroying, and Bob Menery.[citation needed] In 2020, the league had rebranded once again as Fan Controlled Football (FCF).

2021[]

Main article: 2021 Fan Controlled Football season

The league began its inaugural season in February 2021. The FCF began play on February 13, 2021, with four teams competing in a 12-game-format over six weeks. The league uses Internet streaming as its main television platform and is streamed on Twitch and VENN on Saturdays, with reruns on FTF; the league championship is carried on the digital subchannel network LX. The FCF saw a steady increase in its viewership through its first five weeks, from 735,000 in the first week to 2.1 million in the playoffs.[17] The Wild Aces beat the Glacier Boyz 46–40 in the final, named the People's Championship as voted by the fans, on March 20, 2021.

John Jenkins and Shawn Liotta serve as coaching consultants for the league, with Jenkins having a prominent on-air role during FCF telecasts.[18]

Rules[]

Source:[19]

  • Games are two halves of 20 minutes each. The league aims to complete each game in approximately one hour of real time. The clock runs continuously except in the final 30 seconds of each half and overtime, when the clock stops after each play. There is a 10-minute overtime period in case of a tie; each team getting one possession to start the period. Winner is first team leading after one possession; otherwise, it's true sudden death thereafter.
  • Rock, paper, scissors replaces the coin toss.
  • Seven men play on each side of the ball, with three men on the offensive line.
  • Each team has one time out. The teams also have access to three "power-ups:" a fifth down (giving an offensive team an extra play to avoid a turnover on downs), Flip the Field (moving the ball back to the offensive team's 10 yard line), or a power play (which forces the opposing team to play the next play with only six players).
  • There is no kicking or punting. All offensive possessions that do not result from turnovers begin on the 10 yard line.
  • The FCF uses the onside conversion option introduced in the Alliance of American Football. A team may attempt one play to gain ten yards from their own 10 yard line to retain possession. Through most of the season, teams could use the rule after any touchdown; after a team attempted to abuse the rule in a week 4 contest, it was revised so that only a trailing team could use the onside conversion.
  • The two-point conversion is played one on one between a wide receiver and a defensive back from the five yard line, with the quarterback having four seconds to throw the football.
  • Team rosters are reset and dispersed every week in a draft, with the exception of two franchise players who are protected and remain on a team's roster throughout the season. Defenses and offensive lines are drafted as groups and play together through the entire season to improve team chemistry and quality of play.
  • The backup quarterback on each squad must play at least one possession for every two that the starting quarterback plays, unless one of the two is injured.
  • Fans vote on all offensive plays in real time and also decide the outcomes of instant replay reviews.
  • All four teams qualify for the playoffs. Fans of the team with the best regular season record get to vote on who they want to face in the semifinal, with the other two teams facing each other and the winners advancing to the championship.[20]

Teams[]

Team[21][22] Colors Joined Owners
Beasts     2020 Marshawn Lynch, Miro, and Renee Montgomery[23]
Glacier Boyz     Richard Sherman, Quavo, Deestroying, and Adin Ross[24]
Wild Aces     Greg Miller, Austin Ekeler, Jack Settleman, Rachel Lindsay, and Barbara Dunkelman[25]
Zappers     Trevor May, Dalvin Cook, Bob Menery, and Ronnie Singh[26]

Champions[]

Champions
Year Winner Runner Up Score
2021 Wild Aces Glacier Boyz 46–40

References[]

  1. ^ "Rule Book". Attach.io. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  2. ^ "eFL Official Website". eFL. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  3. ^ "Andy Dolich; The time is now for fan-controlled sport".
  4. ^ "Fan Controlled Football league salary: How much do the players get paid?".
  5. ^ "Details on FCF Season v2.0!". FCF Owners Box. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  6. ^ "Fan Controlled Football League Sees Growth, Eyes Expansion in Year Two".
  7. ^ Hofstetter, Steve (March 16, 2008). "The Ultimate Fan Fantasy: Owning a Piece of the Rock". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Swaminathan, Nikhil (2008-08-07). "Go Team - Issue 012 - GOOD". Good.is. Archived from the original on November 26, 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b "A tech startup plans a revolution with the first fan-run sports franchise". CBSSports.com. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
  10. ^ Flynn, Erin (June 6, 2016). "Project FANchise: Behind the fan-run football team". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  11. ^ "How Can Football Video Games Get More Realistic? Real Humans". The Wall Street Journal. April 17, 2017. Archived from the original on April 21, 2017.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Are You Ready for Some (Fan-Controlled) Football?". The Washington Post. October 16, 2019. Archived from the original on October 16, 2019.
  13. ^ "Hello World – Introducing the eFL and the FAN Token". Electronic Football League. October 11, 2017.
  14. ^ Rob Goldberg (March 6, 2019). "Chad Johnson Joins Marshawn Lynch, Richard Sherman in FCFL as a Team Owner". Bleacher Report.
  15. ^ "Los Angeles Chargers running back Austin Ekeler is now a team owner in the Fan Controlled Football League".
  16. ^ "Quavo Announced as Newest Investor of Fan Controlled Football".
  17. ^ Williams, Randall (March 19, 2021). "Fan Controlled Football League Sees Growth, Eyes Expansion in Year Two".
  18. ^ https://www.yourerie.com/digital-first/digital-exclusive/digital-exclusive-fan-controlled-football/
  19. ^ https://www.fcf.io/how-it-works
  20. ^ https://news.fcf.io/2021/an-open-letter-to-beasts-fans/
  21. ^ "Fan Controlled Football League Chooses Team Names, Solicits Logo Submissions".
  22. ^ "Fan Controlled Football League Announces Fan-Chosen Team Names".
  23. ^ "Beasts Team Details". FCF. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  24. ^ "Glacier Boyz Team Details". FCF. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  25. ^ "Wild Aces Team Details". FCF. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  26. ^ "Zappers Team Details". FCF. Retrieved May 12, 2021.

External links[]

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