Armchair Athletics Presents: The Trenches
There are a lot of fascinating league concepts across the fantasy football world. You may have played in the Scott Fish Bowl, The Megalo Bowl, TSF144, or any other number of unique leagues. This season we will highlight the most groundbreaking fantasy football league of them all, The Trenches. Created by Armchair Athletics, The Trenches, features 12 teams competing for $5,000 in a league like you’ve never seen. I had a chance to sit down with founder Christopher Fox @ArmchairAlpha and ask him a few questions this weekend.
Describe “The Trenches”
"The Trenches!" is simply the craziest Fantasy Sports reality competition ever conceived.
12 teams will compete in a relentless winner takes all showdown that will see a mixture of almost every league type.”
“Competitors will face a different set of “GameBreakers” each week. These GameBreaker challenges can influence every facet of the game from how points are scored, to player availability, to even forcing players to score points for the opposition. There are many twists and turns coming, unfortunately, I’m not allowed to discuss much beyond this. The one reveal we can give is week 1’s GameBreakers:
Turnovers are worth -10
Pick 6’s are worth -16
Your starting QB’s point total is credited to the other team
We do make sure to ensure a level of fairness so Quarterbacks are required to be week one starters. The beauty is week one features the bottom-feeding QB’s in almost every lineup and every manager rooting against their own.”
What inspired the idea to try this kind of show?
“Honestly, it just hit me like a ton of bricks one day. Master Chef Jr was on TV where I work, and I basically binged the entire first season during my shift...it was a slow day haha. On the drive home, the idea popped into my head that someone should do that with fantasy sports, and why not us?!
Armchair Athletics LLC (www.armchairathletics.com) was born that day with the purpose of
bringing Fantasy Sports players back together using the same technology that has made
playing so much easier, but also has separated and isolated us from those we play with.
We quickly began working on how to make a fantasy league something people would want to watch and participate in. We knew it had to be entertaining and real. Reality shows like Master Chef, Survivor, etc all have twists and turns along the way that challenges the competitors to really dig deep into their skill sets. It just made sense to do the same with this project.
We had a couple of guys named Cody Stockton and Daniel Weiss on our weekly live fantasy football show, Yards After the Catch, during the draft. They started a website called Elite
Fantasy Games about 10 years ago that specialized in creating new innovative ways to
play fantasy...well, anything. These guys were creating fantasy contests covering
everything from mainstream sports, golf, wrestling, and even the Grammys! Naturally, we
reached out to bring them on board and the rest from there is hopefully history in the making.”
Where and when can viewers tune in
“As of now, the recorded episode of the show will stream over YouTube, multiple Facebook
pages to include Armchair Athletics and Yards After the Catch, Twitter, and Twitch.
We would like to obtain a Roku channel at some point and we currently have a mix of 11 major production companies and networks watching to see how the show is perceived. The fantasy community has been overwhelmingly supportive of the idea and hopefully, their support will put "The Trenches!" in the mainstream very soon! “
How does the audience get involved?
“Great question! We truly wanted "The Trenches!" to be more than just a show, but a way for
everyone to be a part of the experience! During the season, viewers will be able to visit "The Armchair Athletics!" YouTube channel and vote on who they think is going to win each match-up, and who will have the highest score each week.
Those that vote correctly will be thrown into a drawing for great prizes and giveaways.
Additionally, each of our fantastic competitors has started fundraisers for a charity of their
choice! Viewers can find the links to these charities through the "Player Profiles" on both the
YouTube channel and at www.thearmchairathletics.com. When viewers donate to their favorite competitor charities, they can influence special "features" for the contestants every week.
There may only be one winner of "The Trenches!", but through the contributions made to these amazing charities, the audience can help so many others feel like winners too!”
That’s it for this week but make sure you tune in each week to “The Trenches” to show your support for this awesome concept as well as yours truly, Captain Chaos. Check back later this week as we break down all of the players competing in “The Trenches” including Patriots Sports Radio's own Chris and Eric.