In Inaugural Season, Fan Controlled Football Innovates on the Field, in the Broadcast

In Inaugural Season, Fan Controlled Football Innovates on the Field, in the Broadcast Productions deploy drones, HelmetCams, miked players, 180-degree cameras By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Wednesday, March 24, 2021 - 2:23 pm

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Fan Controlled Football (FCF) wrapped up its inaugural season over the weekend with The People's Championship, marking the culmination of one of the more intriguing experiments in pro-sports history. In addition to being the only pro sports league to let fans call plays in real time, FCF, aided by production partner Crazy Legs Productions, aims to create a unique experience for viewers with non-traditional elements, including drones, HelmetCams, miked quarterbacks, and 180-degree cameras on the sidelines.

CLICK HERE for Fan Controlled Football's Patrick Dees on Redefining Football for the Digital Age'

Our goal is to fundamentally redefine football for the digital age, says FCF Co-Founder and Chief Gaming Office Patrick Dees. We wanted to take a step back and ask, If you invented football now, what would it look like?'

How It Works: New League, New Rules ActionStreamer provided multiple HelmetCams for FCF productions.

The first six-week season of Fan Controlled Football featured four-teams competing in 7-on-7 games for which fans made key decisions ranging from play-calling to roster moves. Teams switched players on a weekly basis, with each team retaining two franchise players selected by team owners and one selected by the fans after the first game. Each week, players not retained entered a pool for the redraft the following Wednesday. Games were played at Infinite Energy Arena outside Atlanta the next weekend.

Played on a 50-yard field with each team starting on its own 10-yard line, FCF games have two 20-minute halves (games take roughly an hour on average), with a running clock that stops after scores and for the one-minute warning at the end of each half (in the final minute, the clock stops following first downs or an incompletion).

There are no kickoffs, punts, or field goals. Extra points (either a 1-point conversion from the 5-yard line or a 2-point conversion from the 10-yard line) are determined by a 1-on-1 wide-receiver/defensive-back battle, for which fans choose the WR and DB and the QB has three seconds to throw the ball.

NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana (center) is one of several guests who joined FCF broadcasts this year.

The FCF's goal is to attract football fans and non-football fans alike with an emphasis on appealing to the gaming/esports community and younger generations of fans who grew up with EA's Madden NFL videogame franchise. With Twitch and VENN as FCF's primary distribution outlet, fans could interact with the content and provide real-time feedback in addition to selecting plays. The People's Championship was carried by NBCLX and by DAZN Canada. VENN carried games all season, including the championship.

The league's efforts apparently paid off. FCF became the fastest-growing live-sports channel on Twitch and the No. 2 most-watched live-sports channel (more than 7.5 million total live views on Twitch prior to The People's Championship).

A Whole New Way To Cover Football Crazy Legs Productions rolled out Ross Production Services' RMP-6 mobile unit for the full six-week schedule. Inside the truck, the crew handled the broadcast, Twitch integration, and ActionStreamer HelmetCam operations.

FCF's bombastic entrances for player introductions give players a chance to showcase their personality.

FCF deployed DJI drones similarly to a Skycam to create the Madden videogame look. Originally, the production team had planned to use the drone as the primary game camera, but the nearly constant QB scrambling and big plays forced it to adjust.

We really liked that Madden look, [similar to the] Skycam angle, where the drone snuggles down into the huddle and, when they break, you pull back and go over the shoulder of the quarterback, says CJ Bottitta, who served as executive producer for the FCF broadcasts. But one of the challenges with that is, when they throw it down the field as often as they do in this league, it's hard to follow that ball. And the fans are loving having them throw the ball downfield.

Another challenge, Bottitta continues, is that having quarterbacks who can scramble this much makes it really hard for the drone to [adjust]. We still use the main drone a lot, but we will continue to tinker with how we cover the live game play.

In addition to the drones, the camera complement comprised one hard up camera at midfield, two hards at the 15-yard lines, two handhelds (one an RF), two or three HelmetCams per team on key players (typically QBs, WRs, and some strategic defenders), a HatCam POV system on the referee, and POV cams in the two commentator booths. Quarterbacks and key players are also miked during the games.

FCF teams have several celebrity owners, including former NFL star Marshawn Lynch (right)

The camera positions have evolved because we're truly learning a whole new sport, says Bottitta. Yes, it's football, but it's 7-on-7, and the wrinkles that are involved in this sport - the point after, kickoffs, review challenges, power-ups - mean you need to learn the actual sport almost from scratch. With the tighter field, sometimes it's like producing in a Thomas's English muffin: you have little nooks and crannies that you have to find the best angle for and adjust how you would normally do things.

Because the game is played on a 50-yard field, the production team could use shorter lenses than in a traditional football broadcast. For example, the midfield game camera had a 60mm lens, the midfield cameras at the 15-yard lines were 40mm, the RF 14mm, and the wired handheld a 22mm

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/03/24/in-inaugural-season-fan-control...
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