[ICO] FCFL — The Future of Sports

[ICO] FCFL — The Future of Sports

Professional sports teams create and inspire passion in their fans, and the revenue streams fueled by that passion are stronger and more diversified than ever before. Yet professional sports have been slow to implement new technology and are severely lacking when it comes to fan interaction and engagement. Fans yearn to have a say, but they have little voice in the organizations they support. As teams and leagues grow larger and more popular, billions of dollars of franchise value and wealth is being created from the passion (and spending) of fans, yet only a chosen few get to enjoy the dream of being a team owner and wield the decision-making power ownership provides.

How often do you disagree with the coach’s tactics or the players selection while watching the game of your favorite team? Fans don’t have a well-deserved influence on the game process. Sure, you can shout from your seat with the hope that coach will hear your prayers. Or you can use your cellphone to make a real-time play calling decisions. The last suggestion sounds crazy, right? Well, times change.

So, what is the FCFL, exactly?

The FCFL is the a professional sports league truly designed for the digital age — putting fans in control of their sports entertainment experience. Player personnel and real-time play calling decisions are all made by fans via the league’s mobile app, making fans the coach and general manager for their team. Fans will no longer be just viewers; rather, they will be active contributors to the games they are watching. This is a transformational shift in the way sports fans engage and interact. This is the democratization of sports, and it’s about to be realized through the most innovative sports league ever created, thanks to decentralized technology.

The FCFL proposition is one of the more engrossing propositions that ICO seekers are likely to come across due to its sheer novelty, if nothing else.

Veering away from the usual ICO focus on technology, the initial idea for FCFL arose from a proof-of-concept project implemented in early 2017 which involved the creation of a new Indoor (American) Football League team, the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, whose tactical decisions both on and off the field were the result of direct input from fans via a voting app.

The experiment was apparently so successful — and the media coverage that it generated appears to back up the claim — that the team was removed from the league by its owners who now want to start up a fully Fan-Controlled Football League (FCFL, the name of the ICO that you are now reading about) — a league where every single team is managed directly by the team’s own fans.

WHITEPAPER

A reading of the white-paper is recommended here, particularly for those who have little familiarity with American Football. In the first place, the FCFL is looking to create its own indoor American football league to rival that of the current IFL.

Whilst the project will initially be American Football-focused, it seems that the project leads here are already thinking further ahead.

Working with the assumption that the idea will be so popular that it will quickly be adapted to other sports, the project leads are gearing their vision towards the FAN token becoming the centre of an entire universe of interactive, fan-controlled sports.

Banking on the proposition that they themselves will be the only ones around to offer up the necessary commercial partnerships and infrastructure necessary to expand on a concept that they themselves will be pioneering — as opposed to being copycatted successfully by others, for example — the idea has attracted sufficient interest that its advisory team now includes executives from Sega, Disney, the NFL (a former COO of the San Francisco 49’ers, no less) and, from the blockchain space, Galia Benartzi, co-founder of Bancor.

TEAM

Unusually for a white-paper, information on the team occupies almost one half of the contents — full biographies are provided for each prominent individual involved with the project.

They team appears to be drawn from a long list of backgrounds which is entirely expected given the equally long list of skillsets that will be required to pull of a project with this kind of ambition: figures drawn from the world of football coaching, media production, gaming and PR are all in there. This is a white-paper that is boasting its team which, apart from the concept itself, appears to be the project’s biggest asset.

Roadmap and Timing

The project is looking to raise the kind of capital that will allow it to rig up an indoor venue which will host every single game of the new football league that it intends to create. The location of that venue is still under discussion but Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City are cited as being among the leading contenders.

A specialised venue, they explain, is required because specialised production equipment itself is needed to optimise the real-time viewing experience: overhead cameras that track each individual player’s movements, monitoring equipment rigged to the players themselves that allows information to be relayed between players and fans, along with a specialised studio to accommodate real-time commentary between hosts and fans.

The league’s first season will offer up a prize of $1,000,000 to the league winners. This will be distributed to the winning team and a subset of the winning team’s fans. This subset of fans are the so-called leaderboardfans who rank highest on the team’s leaderboard for a combination of association with the most winning plays and — significantly — FAN token holding. We have, then, a proposal that, if successful, could lead to some fans having the kind high profiles that matches those of players themselves.

The roadmap below provides a view of both where we came from and where we are heading.It’s been a long journey to get here, yet it feels like we’re just getting started.

The FCFL in 2018

Next year, the FCFL will feature eight inaugural teams, with games hosted in an ultra high-tech production studio focusing on digital broadcast of the action. All kinds of pioneering tech will be trialed, from helmet and drone-operated cameras to in-built sensors into the field and equipment. Fans will be able to interact with players and coaches directly via video, Snapchat and Twitter — in and off the field action.

The FCFL will utilise the FAN token, an ERC20-compatible token that will power fan activity, from voting to real-time play calls. The more activity the fan produces, the more FAN tokens they earn, increasing their influence over team decisions. Fans with the largest pools of FAN will also be eligible for benefits such as tickets, prizes and exclusive events, with a leaderboard showcasing the most successful play-callers for each team. Fans from the championship team will even get a chance to share in the million-dollar prize purse.

If you’ve ever wanted to be a manager, coach or trainer in a professional football league, your chance has arrived.

What are FAN Tokens?

Simple: Fan Access Network (FAN) Tokens allow you to manage your team. It is ERC20-compatible Smart Token. Thus, Ethereum blockchain technology guarantees transparency and openness of all fans’ actions. Fairplay comes to a whole new level.

How can I get FAN Tokens?

You can buy FAN Tokens by participating in the ICO campaign. In the future, tokens also can be earned by what you love most: watching games, calling plays, making team decisions and competing against rival fans. The more tokens — the more influence you have. Sounds fun, isn’t it? But the most fun part ahead: top fans of the team, that will win the championship, get a part of the $1,000,000 prize pool. Your sports knowledge and manager skills will be generously rewarded.

The system has already been successfully tested.

Salt Lake Screaming Eagles was the first fan-controlled professional sports team. In February 2017 the Indoor Football League, where the team debuted, attracted over 8,000 fans and sold out the Maverik Center in Salt Lake City. Also, 200,000 additional fans from all over the World streamed the game. Media giants The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Sports Illustrated also covered this unique event.

Salt Lake Screaming Eagles

In conclusion, I want to say that I’m a big sports fan and the concept of the FCFL is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. This is what sports need the most. We all live in an amazing time and our duty is to fully enjoy it.

Power to the Fans!

For more information:

Website : https://fcfl.io/

Blog: https://medium.com/@FCFLio

Whitepaper : https://view.attach.io/rJnBiarpb

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/FCFL/

Twitter : https://twitter.com/fcflio

Telegram: https://t.me/FCFL_FAN_TOKEN

ANN: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2396752.0

Github : https://github.com/ElectronicFootball/FAN-TOKEN-SMART-CONTRACT

Bitcointalk profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1353936