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New 8-Team Football League Gives Fans Control Based On Blockchain-Based Tokens

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Soon there will be an entire American football league built on the premise that fans should be able to choose the players and coaches that make up each of the eight inaugural teams and even pick the teams' offensive plays. The innovative league is based on the belief that fans will enjoy a product that feels more like a video game than a traditional football-watching experience.

The forthcoming league has been branded the Fan Controlled Football League (FCFL). Its uniqueness is also centered on the fact that it is powered on the Ethereum blockchain with a newly developed cryptocurrency - the FAN Token - serving as the digital currency of the league and a tool for ranking the voting power of fans when it comes to drafting players, picking coaches and calling the plays that the seven-on-seven teams carry out on the field. Each fan will be required to pick one team to support and will thereafter be ranked based on FAN Token ownership.

Over $2 million was raised by the FCFL in the first forty-eight hours of a pre-sale for the token, which is being hosted by Indiegogo. The league has capped its pre-sale at $5 million.

In total, eight teams will compete in the FCFL and they will all share the same facility in order to cut what would otherwise be a major cost in travel. Instead of playing in a stadium or arena, teams will participate in what is described as a "high tech production studio," which is intended to create a strong digital product for fans who will be watching on mobile devices around the world.

"Think about an American Ninja Warrior set," says FCFL CEO Sohrob Farudi. "Maybe 500 people are actually there, but the product itself is built for the digital audience. It will be a fifty-yard field with padded walls. The idea is to keep it indoor, smaller, fast pace."

The match-ups will be seven-on-seven and limited to one hour in length. 

"We look at this league as building a real life video game," adds Farudi. "Sports is very tribal and geographic-based, but video games aren't. When you load up a game for the first time, you're drawn to a character or team for a number of factors. So we're building eight different archetypes for these teams. Different in look, feel, logo, color and we really create reasons for a fan to align."

The FCFL will host and livestream tryouts around the country. It will employ knowledgeable individuals to put profiles together on the prospects so that fans are educated about the players before the draft occurs.

Farudi believes that the structure of the league supports executing two seasons per year, because each season will last only around three months.

The concept of a fan-controlled team is certainly unique, but not a first-of-its-kind offering. In fact, those behind the FCFL were originally backers of the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, a franchise in the ten-team Indoor Football League (IFC) that also turned over the keys of the team to the fans and will be included in the FCFL's inaugural season.

"Our original thought when we went into the Indoor Football League and bought the team was that we would license the technology to other teams, potentially buy other teams in the league, and kind of transform the IFL to the Interactive Football League," explains Farudi. "What we realized was that we were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole a little bit. We had a digitally focused, worldwide look at what we wanted to build with less focus on fans in the arena and more focus on a global digital audience. The rest of the owners in the IFL gave us an opportunity to play and were supportive, but from our point of view we thought a lot of things needed to change in the game itself. It would've taken years to convince the owners in that league for the changes we wanted to make."

Farudi, who was also the team's majority owner, says that the Screaming Eagles checked all of the boxes that he hoped to check, despite coaches and players being concerned early on as to how the fan-interaction and technology would affect them with preparation and during actual games.

"We established that real-time play technology could work and not negatively impact the game," says Farudi. "You could get the plays in to the field on time and run the plays the fans actually wanted to run."

The Screaming Eagles went 5-11 as an expansion team, but was ranked third in offense in the league. Fans participated in calling plays from around the world, including Australia, Germany, France and Asia. The play calling was integrated into a Twitch platform that also was the conduit for airing the team's final six home games.

FCFL will announce a major media partner shortly, which will also incorporate the interactivity features within its product. Farudi's goal is to have a million dollar championship purse that will be split between winning team, coaches and team's top fans. Raising $2 million in forty-eight hours and having a major media partner in the wings is a good start toward reaching that goal.

Darren Heitner is the Founder of South Florida-based HEITNER LEGAL, P.L.L.C. and Sports Agent Blog. He authored the book, How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know.