The Power squares off against the Grit in a Your Call Football game in Vero Beach, Florida. (Courtesy of Your Call Football)
On May 3, Your Call Football debuted its play calling app for the first time in a live game. Two teams named Power and Grit, composed of former players from heavyweight programs like Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC, squared off against each other at Historic Dodgertown, a multi-sport facility in Vero Beach, Florida. And every play was called by fans.
As the game kicked off, Your Call Football President Julie Meringer was nervous. The system had been rigorously tested with virtual fans, but this was a real game.
“Are you kidding me,” exclaimed Meringer when asked about that first true test. “The whistle blows, the head referee starts the game and you just sit there with a pit in your stomach staring at your phone.”
Your Call Football uses a zero-latency app for everything, users will see a countdown clock when the tech is working correctly. “It felt like an eternity for me to see that on my phone, when in fact, it wasn’t an eternity,” Meringer said.
When George Colony founded YCF, he wanted it to achieve five major goals: have no hitches in the technology, stream with very little latency, secure great players, produce a professional product, and, of course, be fun.
“I would say that if you asked me a year ago, ‘how’s this all going to work out?’ I would’ve said, ‘hey, the chances of all those five happening are probably fifty percent,'” Colony said. “So I’m pretty blown away that we’ve been able to play those odds so well and it worked.”
Over a three-game series in May, fans called roughly 295,000 plays and picked up $50,000 in prizes. Two YCF players were signed to NFL rosters as a result of the exposure they got from YCF—Grit defensive tackle Ashaad Mabry to the Panthers and Power tight end Wes Saxton to the Lions. Five more players were invited to NFL minicamps, and seven more were signed to the CFL.
There were still some issues with the product, though. The YouTube stream of the games didn’t run smoothly, but Merigner believes that is easily fixable.
Coaches Merril Hoge and Mike Sherman were frustrated, too, though that had nothing to do with the technology. “Mike was pissed at his players, there were a lot of dropped balls,” Meringer said. “They were unfazed by the technology. If anything, what was cool was the players were more fazed by it in a positive way. They were out on social media afterwards telling the fans ‘call the plays so I can catch them!'”
Next on the plan for Your Call Football is evaluating a second series in the fall and continuing with two series on an annual basis. Perhaps the general theme and technology could even be used for something like the Pro Bowl. “I think yes, people are asking us questions,” Meringer said. “So I’ll leave it at that.”
