What Makes the FCFL Different? Part Two
The major professional sports leagues offer an incredible product. We love them. We consume them with unbridled and unapologetic enthusiasm ourselves. Monday Night Football, Christmas NBA triple headers; NHL Playoffs — these are institutions, baked into the very fabric of our lives, both digital and real. They showcase the best talent in their respective sports that the world has to offer. What’s not to like?
They are also rooted in mythology, which has its pros and cons. On the positive side, these leagues have a palpable sense of lore associated with them. Just hearing the NFL Films orchestra sets off a pavlovian response mechanism that gets our blood pumping and our stomachs craving buffalo wings. They have a unique history shared by their fans and players alike; a tangible narrative with which to entertain their consumers. Cowboys and Niners, Yankees and Red Sox, Wilt’s 100 points and Broadway Joe’s victorious prediction.
They have tradition.
But tradition also carries with it some encumbrances. They are tied to it and slow to adapt from it, even when doing so would be an obvious win for their organization. They constantly worry about change and how it will affect the relationship with their fans. Even something as seemingly mundane as putting an advertisement on a jerseyis celebrated as monumental innovation. The idea of technological shift isn’t just unfathomable to these leagues; it would represent a complete deviation from the story they have told for decades. They are tethered to their old-school operations like a ship to a dock because at the very core of their value proposition is the story. The narrative that often carries more value to the act of fanaticism than does the very quality of play on the field. They simply cannot do what we can do.
We will foster more innovative approaches to sports media than can the major existing professional leagues. Let’s take a look at how:
Part Two: The videogame revolution is not just upon us; it’s been here for quite a while
If you are interested in what the FCFL is building, there’s a good chance that you are familiar with the role of video games within the fan experience. They’ve been pivotal to each league’s narrative and ongoing engagement with fans since ataris began permeating American living rooms in the eighties (millenials, ask your parents). Even things like the original electronic football, which traces its roots to the 1940s, served the practical purpose of providing a simulation of the game over which you had a bit of control (our tech is a bit more advanced).
Football has Madden, NFL Blitz, and (our favorite) Tecmo Bowl. Hockey has EA NHL and Wayne Gretzky Hockey. Baseball has RBI Baseball, MLB2K, and Out Of The Park. Basketball has NBA Jam, NBA Live, and NBA 2K. We’ve burned as many hours (and possibly more) jamming our thumbs into controllers playing these games than we have watching the very leagues that they mimic. Some of the nerdiest among us spent entire semesters of college engrossed in franchise and dynasty modes, not even playing the actual games but rather acting solely as GM (spoiler alert: NCAA Football 2005 for PS2 caps you at 60 seasons).
Video games have long represented an additional outlet for fandom, and with the rise of Esports, we are seeing a further push for digital consumption of competition. Some analysts project the Esports market to reach over a billion dollars by 2020, and it already has its own ESPN page and the largest tournament purses in competitive sports. The Screaming Eagles demonstrated that our fan-centric approach to real football has great crossover appeal within the Esports community, as our partnership with Amazon’s Twitch helped generate over 100,000 active fans from over 100 countries in our first season.
So while soccer has FIFA, the FCFL has… the FCFL! Our fan-driven gameplay will essentially replicate its own football simulation. You are still making the play calls, but now instead of an electronic avatar running your option route, you will see a former SEC world-class athlete making the play.
Continue reading and join the discussion at FCFL Headquarters!
