Fantasy football has always served as a way for the average Joe to have their shot at curating a roster and showcasing their competency at predicting the outcomes of professional sports games. Some of us maintain casual weekly leagues with co-workers or old college friends: a light-hearted way to keep in touch or get to know each other better, with the occasional embarrassing tattoo resulting from the worst performances. Others partake in more in-depth dynasty formats: keeper leagues that require year-round roster maintenance and a balance between prepping for the future and winning in the present. And still others cannot get their fix with just a single roster; they turn to daily fantasy sports (DFS) to interact with new squads on a weekly, daily, and sometimes hourly basis.

One thing is clear throughout all of these levels of fantasy football engagement: fantasy players LOVE assembling rosters.

Whether through traditional preseason draft, or through offseason transacting in keeper leagues, or through weekly assemblage against a salary cap in DFS, nearly every fantasy player would agree that the act of crafting a lineup is undoubtedly the most enjoyable aspect of fantasy sports.

Drafts alone have become such marquee events as to warrant an entire economy around their existence. Restaurants and bars offer services to cater exclusively to league drafts. Even the leading casinos in Las Vegas offer high-priced packages to host ornate in-person drafts to the most die-hard fanatics among us.

It’s pretty clear that we all wish we could be a GM, scouting all the players of an upcoming draft, scheming about how they might fit into a roster, and that fantasy sports (alongside Madden Franchise Mode) is our outlet to pursue this dream in a digitized setting.

But a new professional football league is seeking to take this experience one step further. Rather than have fans assemble a mock roster of real players to count their statistics during games in which the fans are but passive observers, the Fan Controlled Football League (FCFL) will offer a hybridized version of professional football, fantasy sports, and video games, with fans in control of all roster decisions, transactions, and play-calling. Fans will even be tasked with identifying talent from across the globe and discovering new players for the league to sign.

Every single football-related decision in the FCFL will be put to a fan vote. Which play should we call on this 4th and four with two minutes left in a tie game? Should we sign this coach who specializes in West Coast-style passing attacks or that coach who runs an RPO-heavy offense? Should we trade our starting cornerback for an additional slot receiver? Each one of these scenarios will constantly be fed to each team’s digital fan base, with all votes being tallied via blockchain technology utilizing the league’s proprietary token: the FAN Token. Whatever the final votes says goes, and all decisions are rendered transparent by the public ledger.

The FCFL will give every fan their chance to assemble a REAL roster; not just an amalgamation of players on someone else’s roster. And further, by employing a token system to reward successful engagement, the FCFL will promote a system that incentivizes the best football minds to manage their teams. FAN Tokens will be distributed for positive outcomes (like, say, voting on a play call that yields a touchdown), and each Token earned increases a fan’s voting power. The more FAN Tokens you possess, the more weight is given to your vote. This way, the cream will rise to the top and the most knowledgeable fans will ultimately gain greater control over the management of their favorite team’s roster: a true meritocracy of decentralized operations.

Fantasy football has always been just that: a FANTASY. Users get to showcase their sports knowledge against a field of thousands or just a small group of friends, but the output always reflects a sports game over which they have no real control. The FCFL takes the FANTASY element of fantasy football and makes it real. You are still building a roster, only this time that roster will actually compete against other actual teams (whom you, the fan, will actually have to scout in order to prepare for the next week’s game).  You will have the control, just ask the league’s founders!

The FCFL, using FAN Token as the lever, will provide a next-generation experience: the fans truly WILL BE the GM.