Fans Choose A New Football Team's Plays With Their Smartphones (slate.com) 47
A new arena-league football team plays on a 50-yard field and uses a mobile app that allows fans to vote on the team's next play. An anonymous reader writes:
Slate describes a receiver tackled for a short gain after the audience instructed the quarterback to throw a quick pass -- as "shouts and cheers exploded from the stands, with phones raised triumphantly in the air." The quarterback is informed of the chosen plays through an earphone in his helmet, and after one touchdown, one of the players even thanked a fan in the seats for picking a good play. "Then noses immediately returned to screens...the coach and QB were antsy, peering upward, waiting for the fans' next call as the play clock ticked down again..." The team eventually lost 78-47, but to at least make things more interactive, the players all have their Twitter handles sewn on the backs of their jerseys.
Fans can also be "virtual general managers" for a small fee, dialing in to a weekly phone call to give feedback to the team's president, and fans also selected the team's head coach from online resumes and some YouTube videos of interviews. In fact, the article says the fans even picked the team's name, with the name "Screaming Eagles" finally winning out over "Teamy McTeamface" and "Spaghetti Monsters."
Fans can also be "virtual general managers" for a small fee, dialing in to a weekly phone call to give feedback to the team's president, and fans also selected the team's head coach from online resumes and some YouTube videos of interviews. In fact, the article says the fans even picked the team's name, with the name "Screaming Eagles" finally winning out over "Teamy McTeamface" and "Spaghetti Monsters."
Don't get on my bad side... (Score:2)
Re: Don't get on my bad side... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why the ability to direct activities should require users to have a stake in the team or at least in the outcome of the game.
Invite large numbers of random people with no stake to vote on things, and you will inevitably get Teamy McTeamface.
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Invite large numbers of random people with no stake to vote on things, and you will inevitably get Teamy McTeamface.
Then let the guys who actually own everything have a veto and you get Screaming Eagles.
Re: Don't get on my bad side... (Score:2)
A veto would only really help in extreme cases.
Or, it wouldn't really be a veto... if the coach vetos a random pass play because he thinks running the ball is the better decision, that's no longer democracy.
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Hi Jeff Fisher! I wondered where you went after the Rams fired you.
It's a game (Score:5, Funny)
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That doesn't necessarily mean that the play calling was bad. A score of 78-47 implies serious problems with both team's defense and the article mentions problems with the Eagles' offensive line.
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It's not proper football. I mean even if it was proper football it wouldn't be proper football [google.com], but I digress.
Anyway, the field is only the size of a tennis court, it's not hard to score.
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CEOs aren't really overpaid. The amount they get paid seems large compared to normal employees, but it still pales in comparison to the money the actual owners make on it. I mean the CEO is a hired manager to be a replacement for the leadership of the owner(s) (for convenience reasons and because possibly the ownership is shared between multiple parties, some of whom may not possess the skills to lead the company). As such, the CEO needs many of the skills the founders possessed, and therefore its justified
Fantastic! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody found a way to get money from millions of armchair coaches.
I applaud you, Sir.
the mob and betting! (Score:3)
the mob and betting! seems like a way for games to be fixed.
Finally, something to do (Score:4, Interesting)
Something for people watching American football to do in between the vast amounts of waiting to see people actually playing football.
Apparently the latest Superbowl had only 16 minutes [supplementreviews.com] of the ball being in play.
I used to enjoy watching the game - and I see this as an Australian who never grew up watching it. I am not sure if I just finally lost patience with the downtime or if it actually changed and they started ad-stuffing like crazy.
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Yeh, Aussie Rules and rugby are much more interesting!
I spent a year in the US when I was a kid - I lived in SF the year the 49ers won the Superbowl. So I had exposure to it at an early age and got caught up in the excitement of our American-living family & friends, which lasted for several years.
I stopped watching it for a while - mostly because of time differences and difficulty getting access to games. I moved to the US for two years recently and was looking forward to keeping up with it, especially
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Think of it as the difference between turn-based strategy and real-time strategy. Both, when done well, are great. Foreigners who can't get into American football are like Starcraft players who think Europa Universalis is booooooorrrrrrrrrrriiiiinnnnnggg.
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Is it though?
In any case, as I said, I'm Australian and we have a totally different kind of football - Australian Rules - that we [of course] feel is superior in terms of action, physical ability and strategy.
But then we'll happily kick back for five days to watch cricket so YMMV.
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This reminds me of that southpark episode Where they are voting for the Turd Sandwich vs. Giant Douche. I'd love to see where this argument about which is better, Soccer or Football, goes. It seems that even more than sports, the world's greatest pastime is arguing over who's pastime is better.
This has happened before, and will happen again (Score:1)
uses a mobile app that allows fans to vote on the team's next play...shouts and cheers exploded from the stands, with phones raised triumphantly in the air.....The team eventually lost 78-47
Hmm, totally data driven, cheers meaningless victories that mean nothing to the end game, massive loss as a result. Why, it's the Democratic Party revisited!
Missing from the story is how after the game the losing side insisted they bought more merch from vendors, and then burned all of the cars the winning teams familie
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I see your Circus but where is my Bread?
Thanks for taking a break from finding a cure for cancer to let us plebs know how superior you are.