Inside the High-Tech Flag Football League That's Taking on the NFL

[Narrator] This could be the future of football.

No pads, no helmets, no tackling, and lots of selfies.

Welcome to professional flag football.

Seriously.

Vee! Oh!

The most extreme reaction I got was

you're out of your mind, don't do it.

[Narrator] This is Jeff Lewis,

a former Wall Street guy and the founder of

the American Flag Football League.

It's a new teched-out version of pigskin.

When Lewis first brought up the AFFL

not everyone was into it.

What the people who said I was crazy or

I shouldn't do it did, was they made comments

that forced me to research what was

driving their negativity.

[Narrator] So Lewis and his team scoured

social media comments during NFL games,

and they found something sort of surprising.

And what we saw is what do people talk about

when they're watching football games?

And what they talk about is pass, run,

touchdown, interception, they don't say

sack, hit, block, tackle.

The reason that people are gonna want to

pay attention to this is they're gonna see

the athleticism of these guys in a way they never did

when they were wearing gear.

[Narrator] The flag football he imagines

is not that different from the flag football

you've probably played before with your friends.

That's part of the point.

But there is at least one key difference,

and that's the tech.

First off, the players wear electronic flags.

When they're pulled, a signal gets sent

up here to this computer.

Then the precise location gets relayed back to the refs

so there's no confusion about where the play ended.

The goal is to make a product that's more exciting,

higher scoring, and just faster.

While the first AFFL tournament isn't scheduled until 2018,

the inaugural game recently took place at

Avaya Stadium in San Jose, California.

It didn't have a ton of fans, but that's okay.

The folks that did show were passionate.

I don't care that it's flag football.

I want to watch athleticism, you know, good players.

It takes us back to when we were kids and we used to play,

and I love that.

[Narrator] And at the end of the day,

like all pro sports, these games are really just TV shows,

and that's how Lewis approaches it.

The AFFL collaborated with a company called SMT,

which invented things like the virtual first down line

and that little score box that's now on

every sports broadcast everywhere.

They worked for months to make watching these games

feel almost like playing Madden.

You're actually doing all of the virtual lines

and all the virtual graphics that we're providing

from that sky cam.

[Narrator] SMT's latest tech is an elaborate

player tracking system called OASIS.

See those patches on every player's shoulder?

They're pinging wide band wireless signals

all over the stadium which can

map their location in real time.

We can track how far a player's running,

their top speed, distance, all that type of stuff.

[Narrator] OASIS can also track players' heart rates,

watch for head injuries, and do much more

to help keep players safe.

Ultimately, that's what this platform is for.

Because even though the NFL is a juggernaut,

the backlash against what football does

to players' bodies is real.

Lots of parents won't even let their kids

play tackle football any more.

It may not make for great marketing,

but a safer version of football could set the AFFL apart.

You know what is great marketing though?

Famous athletes.

For the first game, Lewis recruited some big name

former footballers, guys like Mike Vic,

Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocinco, and he told them to

take selfies, go live, and tweet to their heart's content.

We've got a lot of guys that supported us

and what we're trying to do, Kerry Rhodes and T.O., Chad,

and it's exciting man, it's something different

and I enjoyed it.

[Narrator] Let's be realistic here.

The AFFL and its aging superstars are not

going to take down the NFL.

There's a long history of leagues trying to disrupt

the biggest sport in America, and they always lose.

But don't be surprised if the NFL football

you see in a few years looks a little more like this.

The faster pace, the graphics, the selfies,

the focus on player tracking, biometric data,

and player safety.

It all makes for exciting football

and great Instagram posts.