After generating more than 30 million total views, the minds behind the successful Fan Controlled Football league announced the creation of Fan Controlled Hoops on Tuesday and the debut of Fan Controlled Sports & Entertainment.
The league will start in Atlanta on February 7 with four teams; the newly created FCH will bring a similar interactive format to the one that FCF innovated. FCH will feature 4v4 play on a high school-size court, which will be a fully interactive LED floor, providing viewers with a unique and fresh way to watch and control the action within the game.
FCH will be led by former Executive Director of the NBA players union Michele Roberts and former NBA All-Star Baron Davis, who are working as strategic advisors to the league. Davis is also a co-owner of one of the league’s teams. Former Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference commissioner Greg Moore will be leading Fan Controlled Hoops’ daily operations as FCH General Manager.
“This is an awesome opportunity to introduce a new style of entertainment to the game, including the introduction of new rules and creative ideas,” said Davis via press release. “I’m excited to connect with fans in new ways through Web3, bringing experiences they can only dream about. FCH is building something special!”
Current and former NBA players will be serving in various roles for FCH, while a plethora of celebrities and content creators will also be joining as team owners. The inaugural four teams, owners, players, coaching staff, and league rules will be rolled out in the coming months.
FCH will also be announcing its broadcast and streaming partners soon. FCF struck deals to broadcast their games on Twitch, NBC LX, Peacock, and DAZN.
“I think one of the things that’s appealing here is we’re building this league from the ground up,” FCSE Co-Founder and CEO Sohrob Farudi tells SLAM. “You saw what we did in football; there are no rules. We’re making the rules up; we’re making up the way that fans interact, we’re making up the way that players interact, and that these team owners are part of the league and experience.
“I think Michele, with what she did in the NBA, and the way she was able to help the players and help them continue to build their equity as players as they grow in that sport, I think there’s an opportunity to do even more and taking a lot of the learnings Michele has over the decade or so that she was with the NBA—I think [it] gives us a real opportunity to grow something special in a lot of different ways.”
Roberts was the first woman to lead a professional sports union in North America as the NBPA Executive Director from 2014 to 2021. She was the primary advocate for all NBA players and was the lead negotiator in all collective bargaining activities. Greg Moore spent 14 years as the commissioner of the SIAC, a major athletic conference that mostly hosted HBCUs.
Davis played 13 years in the NBA, earning two All-Star nods, and played a major role on the “We Believe” Warriors team in 2007. Davis has been heavily involved in content creation and digital start-ups since retiring from the League.
“The thing that I find spectacular about FC Hoops, the same thing that is provided to FC Football, and that is ownership,” Roberts tells SLAM. “I am a stalwart when it comes to the notion of athletes having some equity in the teams whose value they are largely responsible for creating. I have and always will encourage players in any sport to do what they can do to become owners, and this league allows that to happen, and Baron is one of them.”
Fan Controlled Football launched in February 2021 and has now become an eight-team league that is owned and led by athletes, entertainers, and NFT leaders, such as Marshawn Lynch, Quavo, Richard Sherman, Austin Ekeler, Dalvin Cook, Renee Montgomery, The Bored Ape Yacht Club, The Gutter Cat Gang, and Steve Aoki.
For more information on Fan Controlled Hoops, visit FCHoops.io.
