Idea for XFL 2022: LET THE FANS DECIDE!

The Game Room
1

If you really want the XFL come back with a splash in 2022, or any rival league for that matter, why not make the fans invest in the success or lack thereof of the team?

Let fans vote on a limited amount of certain decisions:

-Go for it or not on 4th down
-Coin flip decisions
-Pull a QB
-Draft a player
-Go for extra point or 2 point conversion

Not all of these have to be a majority vote; for instance 2/3 or 3/4 of the fans would need to vote to pull a QB and maybe 90% to over-rule a draft pick. A coach could pull a QB without their vote, of course.

This way fans aren’t limited to just being helpless spectators of their team, but are directly responsible and invested in the success of their team!

This could easily be done online, and to help limit spamming, fans that vote would need to pay a fee and be carefully screened to be a “voter”. I personally would pay a few hundred dollars per season to have a say in my favorite teams outcome.

What other football decisions would you leave in the hands of the fans? Are there other sports that could benefit from this?

I know the old saw is “If you listen to the fans, you’ll be sitting with them” but in this case if the fans make the wrong call, maybe not!

2

What’s to stop fans of the New York Guardians from pulling the QB of the St. Louis Battlehawks at a critical moment? Because you know big-market fans have a massive entitlement complex.

3

This wouldn’t work because you’d have opposing fans trying to muck around with one team’s decisions. It would only work if only Team-A fans get to vote for Team-A’s decisions, and there is no way you can enforce that.

Sure, you could screen for them, as you suggest, but what if there’s a technical glitch mid-game? After all, these voting decisions would have to be made in like 5 seconds or less.

4

Yeah but fans would be paying for the privilege. I would have a process where a team could could veto a fans right to vote on their game. I would make the voting process 60-90 seconds but I think the novelty would make up for any game delays.

Maybe make all votes a 75% minimum to take it out of the coaches hands to eliminate “rigging”.

5

What’s the penalty if a team decides not to follow the fans’ vote?

6

Everything old is new again. Bill Veeck did it with the St. Louis Browns in 1951.

https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/inside-pitch/grandstand-managers-night