First, tell me how you got started in all of this?
Six years ago, after I was done with football, I became an actor in Chicago. I did that for 15 years – shows like Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, Empire…. I ended up having a better acting career than football career!
I came up with the idea after for something new. I was watching a friend of mine’s semi-pro football game – I was in the stands and texted him. It’s semi-pro ball – so he’s there with his phone during the game! I’m watching the game and was just saying to myself how bad the coaches were. After the game I went down and talked to the players and asked the coach if I could have the guys run some plays. He said sure, so I texted them plays from the stands and watched them.
So it evolved from that?
It did – I developed a mobile app but I ran out of money. A friend of mine – Tony Parrish who asked me what I was working on and he introduced me to Sohrob Farud who had the same kind of idea and Brant Cohen, who did something similar in baseball, where you could help run a team through a website. Rather than competing, we got together to build something where the fans can all be involved
That’s how we built Fan Controlled Football . We had a different way of looking at things.
How what is different?
We had four teams – but we wanted to make it about more than just fans calling plays. We realized how much bigger it could be when Greg Hardy wanted to play in the league . I’m sure you remember Greg from Dallas and the off-field issues he had. We let the fans vote on whether he should be allowed to play – and that’s when we really understood how really emotional fan control of a team could be. 51% voted no – and some of the messages were very heated – pictures of the woman he hit and more. So we didn’t sign him.
We saw that fans could be more involved in the executive level decisions – on what players to sign – not just plays to call.
What’s next for the league?
This can occur across any type of sport too – cricket, soccer… Every type of game out there.
We have four football teams now – we want to scale more teams. We want fans to be able to choose everything from what players and cheerleaders to choose, to at some point, even the coaches,
What do you say to those are decisions coaches and executives should make?
Well you still need those guys. Players still need to know how to run plays, and the logistics and ops need run – from scheduling practices and equipment to training. There are so many logistics on the ops side – even with fans controlling things all that work still needs to be done.
Now, we really are like three different companies – football, tech and media. We have created so much content as we developed the league.
What does the league look like in a ideal future?
I’m excited to see where it goes next. Maybe the NFL wants to look at this for the Pro Bowl some day. We do want to scale teams internationally. I use to say “Rep your team!” Now I can say “Rep your country.!” We already have fans in Japan, Fiji, Norway…. The NFL has spent millions to get overseas. We did it in one season.
Have you spoken to the NFL or the CFL about working with them?
I’m 100% open to having those talks. The players in our league – we want them to be able to get film and bulk up their resume. We have good players and talent. But we don’t compete with the NFL or CFL. We’re a completely different league. We’re giving talent the chance to build resumes so they can make it in those other leagues if they want.
We have guys like Eli Rogers, DeAndre Francois, KaVonte Turpin….
Any other thoughts for fans?
There’s a place for everybody here. It’s free to play – you just download the app – it’s an ad and sponsor-driven model. It’s crazy to see the underground fandom the teams have. The fans are super-engaged – they are creating their own apparel, changing their LinkedIn profiles to say they are team owners…. It’s all bubbling up!