Fans call plays in streaming football league

An indoor football league in which the fans call the teams’ plays will have a major online platform.

The eight-team Fan Controlled Football League will stream its games live on Twitch when it begins play next year, the league announced Monday.

The two-year streaming deal is the latest step in the evolution of a league built for fans who want a voice in essentially every aspect of the operations of a football team.

The FCFL is supposed to feel like a video game come to life, so the Amazon-owned video game streaming site is an ideal place to showcase its seven-on-seven brand of football, CEO Sohrob Farudi said.

Fans will call the plays in real time during games, voting on a few choices and reaching a decision that will be quickly relayed to the coaches and players. Fans also will have a role in choosing their teams’ players, coaches, general managers — even their names and logos.

The Twitch broadcasts will be produced by IMG Original Content, a production company arm of the entertainment conglomerate that owns the UFC. When fans watch games on their desktops or phones through Twitch, they’ll have an interactive video overlay through an extension that enables the swift responses needed to choose plays while a game is going on.

The FCFL games will be one hour and will be played in a production studio on a 50-yard field. It’s not traditional football by any means, but its backers believe it’s a compelling new way to consume a well-known product.

The fan-centric concept behind the FCFL was introduced last year by the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, an expansion team in the Indoor Football League that was named and populated by its fans. The team went 5-11 with fans calling plays.