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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."
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Fans Choose A New Football Team's Plays With Their Smartphones

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  • Fake punt Fake punt Fake punt QB sneak Double reverse Fake punt (Yes, I know there is a limited selection of plays to choose from...really the more amazing thing is they got a first down on 3x fake punts and a QB sneak)
  • It's a game (Score:5, Funny)

    by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Sunday February 19, 2017 @08:13AM (#53895501)
    Kudos for getting the fans involved, but I'm waiting for this in ice hockey -- "Throw your gloves down! Pull his jersey off! Punch him in the shoulder pads!"
  • Fantastic! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday February 19, 2017 @09:03AM (#53895589)

    Somebody found a way to get money from millions of armchair coaches.

    I applaud you, Sir.

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Sunday February 19, 2017 @11:42AM (#53895893)

    the mob and betting! seems like a way for games to be fixed.

  • by trawg ( 308495 ) on Sunday February 19, 2017 @01:30PM (#53896207) Homepage

    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.

    • 16 minutes of exciting action is still better than 90 minutes of watching guys kick a ball back and forth to earn a 0-0 tie.
      • by trawg ( 308495 )

        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.

      • 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.

  • 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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