Retired Bengals player Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson has joined the Fan Controlled Football League. (Photo by Joe Murphy/NFLPhotoLibrary)
The Fan Controlled Football League wants to gamify football by putting coaching decisions in the hands of fans. And it’s tapping some of the most well-known personalities (and gamers) in football to do that.
The league announced on Wednesday that Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson will become its latest team owner and captain. The retired NFL wide receiver has built a strong personal brand for himself on social media sites from Twitter to Twitch, and will join current NFL players Marshawn Lynch and Richard Sherman in the FCFL.
A six-time NFL Pro Bowl wide receiver and four-time All Pro, Johnson joins the first professional sports league where fans call the shots. He’ll be responsible for building his team’s brand alongside fans, and will lead them through other key decisions, such as hiring and firing coaches, drafting players and making live game calls.
Influential owners, from Johnson, Sherman, and Lynch to artist Prince Royce (who has 6.5 million Twitter followers), will be able to use their strong social media presences and popularity to attract fans to the league. They’ll likely be able to leverage their personalities to get fans excited about the league and its interactivity.
The inaugural 2019 FCFL season will feature all eight teams playing in a single location. That could mean that instead of rooting for hometown franchises, FCFL fans will instead focus on supporting one led by their favorite celebrity team owner. The FCFL has even built a “team personality analyzer” to help fans find the team that best fits their personality.
“I was one of the first athletes to be active on social media and I’m already streaming on Twitch,” Johnson said in a statement. “This platform was built for guys like me who love football, love gaming and have the type of fans that will kick ass, all the way to the championship—ya hear that, Beastmode and Sherman?”
FCFL CEO Sohrob Farudi joked that he thought Johnson might have an advantage being an active gamer already with such a loyal social media base.
“Not gonna lie, with Ochocinco already being an active gamer, he may have a slight advantage over the other captains, bringing along all of his digital fans on the ride to a championship,” he said.
Farudi added that Johnson, Sherman, and Lynch all possess characteristics that match the league’s brand.
“Whether it’s their elite level of football knowledge, or significant interest in video gaming and fan engagement, each of our team owners align with the FCFL pillars,” he said.
Action from the FCFL’s seven-on-seven games will be captured with drone and helmet cams, and tracked using data from sensors and wearables. A mobile app and Twitch interactive video experience will give fans control over team decisions.
SportTechie Takeaway
The key trend here is that sports and gamification are continuing to merge. In some leagues, esports and sports are taking inspiration from one another. For example, the Overwatch League has esports franchises owned by prominent traditional sports owners and mimics the city-based structure of traditional sports. The FCFL takes a different tactic by completely nixing geographic attachment and instead building fan bases around celebrity personalities.
