Manziel returning for fan-based mostly startup league

Johnny Manziel has agreed to resume his enjoying profession with a startup league called Fan Controlled Football, he told ESPN this week.

The league, scheduled to originate up play in February, will characteristic 7-on-7 games where followers spot rosters, call plays and have interaction in a mix of aged and esports environments.

“The more I heard about what this was once going to be, the more I felt it was once going to be something that was once correct very stress-free,” Manziel talked about. “It be going to be very fan-oriented and something I could per chance well per chance procure on the reduction of with out being extremely, extremely, extremely extreme, the contrivance that my football profession has been within the previous.”

Manziel, 28, connected with FCF co-founder and CEO Sohrob Farudi thru comedian Bob Menery, a mutual fair correct friend. Manziel last played football in April 2019 for the Alliance of American Football and also has played in The Spring League and the Canadian Football League for the reason that Cleveland Browns launched him in 2015.

He talked about this week that he wasn’t having a draw to reach reduction to football at any stage nonetheless was once drawn to enjoying the FCF model on his maintain phrases. Since the AAF folded, Manziel has moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where he talked about he plays golf, throws the football within the yard with chums, watches football on the weekend and has had a “traditional, laid-reduction lifestyle” all over 2020.

“Life presents you opportunities customarily to create something that you might per chance per chance gentle wish to create if it was once in a fascinating ability,” Manziel talked about. “This has rather about a seemingly to correct be a real time and gentle be football-centric. They’re going to let the folk [who] be part of this league be who they’re and have stress-free with it and be a bit bit more free than what football is mostly. That’s positively what appealed to me. They invent now no longer desire me to change who I’m or anything else. They favor to reach reduction out, assign apart a real product out and be stress-free with it.”

Farudi talked about the league will field a heavy emphasis on connecting followers with the gamers’ lives some distance from the discipline, by social media or other digital integration, making it “constructed for a guy fancy” Manziel.

“It be now no longer simplest what you might per chance per chance create on the discipline, nonetheless who you would be off the discipline,” Farudi talked about. “We desire them to join to followers and be decent. I mediate if you happen to attract at Johnny’s profession, he was once electric on and off the discipline. He has that substantial, intrepid personality. Certain, he rubbed some folks the contaminated plot. Nonetheless he correct has this presence about him.

“He received into these other leagues and, I loathe to inform this, nonetheless it absolutely’s fancy the handcuffs were placed on. You needed to behave in any other case. You needed to inch and talk in any other case. He might per chance well per chance no longer correct be himself. That’s where we wish to be assorted as a league. We’re truly embracing this thought of being more than an athlete. … We’re very delighted with having gamers be substantial personalities off the discipline and doing what they favor to create. For us, or now no longer it’s as worthy as about the off-discipline opportunities to join with the fan heinous as it’s about the football on the discipline.”

The Heisman Trophy winner in 2012 at Texas A&M, Manziel was once the No. 22 overall spend within the 2014 NFL draft. He played in 14 games over two seasons for the Browns, nonetheless off-discipline issues and an inattention to his job precipitated the Browns to lower ties with him. Manziel talked about in 2018 that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had abused alcohol to battle depression, episodes that generally stumbled on their technique to social media or he posted there himself.

Asked where he’s now on a non-public stage, Manziel talked about: “I procure up with a smile on my face some distance more than I venerable to within the previous, when folks would have talked about that I had every thing. It be funny how lifestyles works customarily. You’ve got every thing and also you would also be upset, and if you happen to have a lot less, you would also be plot happier. I’m at some degree in my lifestyles where I’m 28 years weak and I’m gentle attempting to resolve out what I’m doing shifting forward and attempting to re-originate an identity, and that is the reason what the previous year has been about for me.”

The FCF’s lead investor is Lightspeed Mission Partners. The league will originate up with four groups, every of which might per chance have celeb homeowners, alongside side NFL gamers Richard Sherman, Austin Ekeler and the retired Marshawn Lynch. Different homeowners consist of hip-hop artist Quavo, boxer Mike Tyson and Menery.

The groups will play a six-week time table, with games livestreamed on Twitch from a league-leased facility in Atlanta. The games will last about an hour, and the discipline will likely be 50-by-35 yards with 10-yard stop zones. Avid gamers will have backgrounds in college Division I and II packages, alongside with the CFL, XFL and Indoor Football League. The FCF recently purchased a commitment from frail Florida Bid and Hampton quarterback Deondre Francois.

Farudi described the league’s imaginative and prescient as a “gamification” of the fan experience focused on the 18-35 age demographic. Followers who register will lift part in worthy of the football operations.

“The youthful generation is never sitting thru a three-hour sport anymore,” Farudi talked about. “They need it fast and straight forward. Piece of our thought is, ‘Let’s give it to them fast and straight forward.’ It be a one-hour sport. It be interactive. That you just might per chance per chance well per chance per chance be staring at and interacting on the identical time.”