There’s a new Arena League Football team coming to Washington D.C., and owner Ted Leonsis (who also owns the Wizards and Capitals) has quite a vision for the franchise.
Via the Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg, here’s what Leonsis has planned:
“I think this is a way to continue to have football that’s outside of the NFL, but to do it in a more millennial-sensitive way,” Leonsis said. “You hear [L.A. owner] Gene Simmons, and he was spot on, talking about how there should be no dead time. In a video game there’s no dead time. And I’m very interested in reaching the audience that isn’t watching cable television. In fact, most of the people who will grow up with our AFL team won’t be cable subscribers; they’ll be people who are spending more time on Twitch. And so we want to be focused on that e-sporting look and feel.”
Does anyone else get the sense Leonsis it spitting out buzzwords without much idea what they mean in any practical sense? What the heck does it mean to have a football team that’s “millennial-sensitive,” with an “e-sporting look and feel?” Is this (yet-to-be-named) team going to have Beyonce as its coach? Bernie Sanders at quarterback? Will there be Mortal Kombat contests at halftime for the gamers? Why would people who spend time on Twitch suddenly be interested in football? And how will you eliminate dead time from a sport that necessarily involves whistles, huddles and play calls?
We’ll have to keep an eye on this D.C. franchise because it sounds like it could be a ground-breaking exercise in pandering to disinterested demographics.
