This is week two of the Ideapreneur’s  football focus.   This week we’ll look at getting fans more into the game.

Imagine that it is late in the fourth quarter, your team is behind by two points and they are driving.  What they need is to be able to stop the clock but they don’t have any time outs left.  What can they do?  This is where the fans come in.  Under this new proposal, that we call Reality Football, the fans can purchase an extra timeout for $50,000.

In recent years the football industry has been growing at about 6% per year.  The Reality TV business has been growing at about 12% per year.  We here at simonburrow.com/ want football to be more important than reality TV so we have come up with an idea we call Reality Football.

Meta World Peace on Dancing with the Stars

Reality Football will allows football fans to be far more involved in games and therefore will significantly improve ratings and revenue.
One of the reasons that Reality TV is gaining popularity is that on many shows the fans have a say in the outcome.  In Dancing With the Stars for instance the viewers vote on who they want to stay on the show.  Reality Football will allow football fans to have the same kind of participation in games and to possibly affect the outcome.
Under the Reality Football proposal the fans can purchase an extra timeout for $50,000.  They can text in their contributions on a mobile phone and the maximum individual contribution will be $5.00.  So if 10,000 fans will text in $5.00 the team can purchase an extra timeout and possibly win the game.  The money will go to charity.  The fans will be more involved in the game and the teams that have the best fan support will have a slight edge in close games.
Of course the actual cost for a timeout and the maximum contribution would have to be set by experimentation and the charities that would benefit would need to be worked out.

In the long run Reality Football will mean that teams will have to think a little bit more about keeping their fans happy.  So the owners, the coaches and the players will have to be more accessible and inclusive.  They will have to be working extra hard so that they will appear to deserve the extra timeout from the fans when they need it.
Imagine a super bowl that is decided because Patriots fans bought a timeout for five million dollars to beat the Giants.  Did I mention that the money will go to charity.
Let me know your thoughts about this idea and forward it to all of the NFL executives you know.  I had the original Reality Football idea a few years ago this is the updated and improved version.