Origins The idea, then known as
Project Fanchise, was covered by
The New York Times with the business concept of a fan-controlled baseball team in 2008, but was written as
satirical piece by comedian
Steve Hofstetter. At the time, the project was just a website created by Grant Cohen with investors consisting of lawyers such as Joe Scura. In 2010, a
GOOD Magazine article described the group's business plan, including asking fans to invest in creating or purchasing a minor league baseball team to become publicly owned and operated. The project ultimately failed when purchasing an existing team proved to carry too much debt. In June 2015, an
Arena Football League team minority owner, Sohrob Farudi, read about the dead project and contacted Cohen about restarting the concept as Project Fanchise. The experience successfully proved the concept of fans controlling the team, but it did not equate to success on the field finishing with a 5–11 record. Fanchise had also acquired the
Colorado Crush just prior to the start of the season but did not implement the system at that time. On April 20, 2017,
The Wall Street Journal reported that Project Fanchise was planning on launching a new league called the "Interactive Football League". Project Fanchise CEO Sohrob Farudi confirmed that the Screaming Eagles and Crush would finish the 2017 season. Project Fanchise folded both teams after the season and began the process to create the new league. After a few months of being known as the Interactive Football League, it rebranded as the Electronic Football League (eFL), before settling on Fan Controlled Football in November 2017. The league then gained backing by
Lightspeed Venture Partners,
Verizon Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Basecamp 2, Next10 Ventures,
Bleacher Report co-founder Dave Finnocchio and
Reddit co-founder
Alexis Ohanian and additional team owners including
Mike Tyson,
Miro,
Trevor May,
Quavo,
Greg Miller,
Deestroying, and Bob Menery. In 2020, the league had re-branded once again as Fan Controlled Football (FCF).
2021 season The league began its
inaugural season in February 2021. The FCF began play on February 13, 2021, with four teams competing in a 12-game-format over six weeks. The league uses Internet streaming as its main television platform and is streamed on Twitch and VENN on Saturdays, with reruns on
FTF; the league championship is carried on the digital subchannel network
LX. The FCF saw a steady increase in its viewership through its first five weeks, from 735,000 in the first week to 2.1 million in the playoffs.
John Jenkins and
Shawn Liotta served as coaching consultants for the league, with Jenkins having a prominent on-air role during FCF telecasts. The Wild Aces beat the Glacier Boyz 46–40 in the final, named the People's Championship as voted by the fans, on March 20, 2021. At the end of the 2021 season, Farudi stated that the league planned to play two seasons a year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and was planning to expand to 20 teams by year five.
2022 season The FCF's second season, nicknamed "Season v.2.0" by the league, was scheduled to begin in fall 2021 but was postponed to Spring 2022 to follow after the NFL's Super Bowl. The league announced they were expanding to eight teams for the 2022 season and announced a new broadcast deal with
NBCUniversal subsidiary
NBCLX and
Peacock to broadcast every game of the 2022 season. In October 2021, the FCF announced the Ballerz Collective and two of the four expansion teams, Team KoD and Team 8oki, later to be given names. The final two expansion teams were announced on January 12, 2022, Team Gutter Cats, and Team Bored Apes, also later to be given names. The defending champion Wild Aces reorganized and rebranded as the Shoulda Been Stars following the departure of one of its co-owners. On January 12, 2022, the FCF announced a $40 million investment, led by
Animoca Brands and Delphi Digital, for spectator-controlled football games. Ahead of the 2022 season, the league began construction on a 1,500-seat arena at
Pullman Yard in
Atlanta, Georgia. The second season, dubbed "Season v2.0", began on April 16, thus putting FCF in direct competition with the
2022 USFL season that launched on the same night. Before the start of the season, it was announced that
Pro Football Hall of Famer
Terrell Owens, age 48, will come out of retirement to play for the
Zappers. He would later be traded to the
Knights of Degen. On May 20, it was reported that
Michael Vick will join him in the league, but he later denied those rumors. In the championship game the Zappers would beat the Bored Ape FC to win the 2022 FCF Championship.
2023 postponed season In February 2023 the league announced the postponement of the 2023 season with intent of adapting the Fan Controlled concept to basketball. In June, Farudi granted an interview to
Sports Business Journal stating that it was pausing the league for the time being due to a loss of capital funding that hit the company in late 2022, as most of its funding was tied to the
cryptocurrency bubble; the company will remain active as Fan Controlled Sports & Entertainment with the intention of licensing their intellectual property and technology to other leagues, in the hopes that the league could be revived if buyers could be found for each of the league's eight teams. Farudi noted that he had brought on
Jerry Kurz, a former
Arena Football League executive, to lead the efforts to find franchise owners. Kurz had returned to the AFL by June 2024, before such owners could be found. In December 2023, it was reported that the league plans to return in 2024. This time the FCF plans to play in several locations, with six-to-eight teams for the v3.0 Season, and aim to expand to 20 teams within the next five years. According to the report, a formal announcement was to be expected in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, but that never materialized.
End of Fan Controlled Sports + Entertainment As of 2025, Fan Controlled Sports + Entertainment (owners of the former Fan Controlled Football) has apparently folded with no social media updates since October 2024. ==Rules==