It’s a Monday night, and the St. Louis Gladiators are on the road, in need of a win to stay alive in a tight playoff race. Standing in the way? The Carolina Skyhawks, a team that has scuffled to a four-win season.

The game’s first two plays are typical enough - a pair of runs that go for minimal yardage – but the next one sets the tone for the rest of the night. On third down, Skyhawks quarterback Sully Richardson takes a hit and sails a pass, which is picked off by a Gladiator defender and returned for a touchdown.

The league’s name is the SFL, and these games can still go on as usual because the contests are simulations, with outcomes powered by artificial intelligence. The Simulation Football League falls into the category of an “e-sport”, but this increasingly popular outlet is different from than, say, a Madden tournament. These games are entirely controllerless, backed by a complex network featuring human "players".

It’s part Madden, part Facebook, and part Dungeons & Dragons.

During a time in which amateur and professional sports leagues are on hold, this association has continued its play on the football gridiron. Although the audience for these contests are smaller than a college football contest in the Southeast or a typical NFL Sunday, it is also on television. There are live streams online, too, and fans have chat discussions online filled with celebrations and smack talk, just like you would find across the country on weekends.

The league is the brainchild of Cameron Irvine, a Texas resident with a lengthy professional background in sports media. He’s covered high school and college sports for a newspaper, served as a sports editor, worked in communications for an arena football team, and has experience in graphic design, play-by-play, and community outreach.

“As a kid, I thought it would be cool to run my own sports league,” Irvine told Rivals.com. “A lot of people might be NFL fans or college football fans, but they’re fans in the sense that, that’s my team but I don’t feel a personal connection. I had the idea of, I would love to have my own team, my own players, different world.”

Irvine, who currently serves as an assistant sports information director at NAIA program Texas Wesley in Fort Worth, took his industry know-how and some trial-and-error to create that world. He spent hours watching video A.I. and ultimately settled on a game called All-Pro Football 2K8 as the vehicle for his league’s simulations. From there, he went about setting up the interesting and complex ecosystem that would power the organization.

The league works like this: each team (20 in all, with two expansion franchises set to join) has 17 roster spots for players that are maintained by an actual person. Those players are on “contracts”, each team having a salary cap in order to build out its roster. Those contracts are worth a specific number of points, and individuals can strategically use their allotted points to improve and progress their player from week to week. To join the league, a person can start off slow by becoming a “non-contract” player that is completely controlled by the league’s A.I., or can begin interacting with the league to build interest, hit the SFL’s minor league system, and join an upcoming draft class. Full league members pay a subscription fee that includes countless hours of entertainment and engagement, in addition to seeing their player on television and having their statistics tracked. There are also folks that are head coaches, offensive or defensive coordinators, and general managers, all of who could be on their couch with a cold one during the games instead of standing on the sidelines.

The operation includes a batch of features one would expect out of an actual professional sports league. There are owner’s meetings, a convention, a pro bowl and awards show, plus broadcasters, writers, social media directors, and stat guys. League personalities communicate over Discord, an online chat application. Each team has a dedicated online “locker room”. Conversations across the platform build friendships and rivalries.

There is even a draft, which is also a live event. The Gladiators’ quarterback, Johnny Pichler, is a player that was the top selection this year. He even personally attended to hear his name called, and Irvine presented him with a jersey during a photo opportunity.

In real life, Pichler is a U.S. Army veteran with two daughters who enjoys playing sports and fantasy football. He dove right into the SFL and instantly made a name for himself. He has gained some fame in these parts for his interaction level, even going so far as to create pregame and postgame “press conferences” to post on YouTube. A late-game interception tossed in a game this season became known around the league’s Discord channel as the “Pichle Six” and is still discussed regularly.

After Pichler’s selection on the draft broadcast, the camera pans to a three-person analyst crew breaking down his selection and which player could be next on the board. There is a feature on the SFL's first female quarterback, Ashley Jackson.

This league comes with drama as well. The Seattle franchise – named the Tyrants – is changing ownership and set to move to Dallas. It may not quite be the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics moving to Oklahoma City, but within this league, it’s caused some bad blood. The contract system – comprised of exclusively one-year deals – creates for a vibrant free agent season.

“It’s a hot stove league,” said Wally Herman, whose digital player is the kicker for the Carolina Skyhawks. His player hit 20 of 22 field goals this season with a long of 53 yards.

Herman is a devoted South Carolina Gamecocks fan. He’s a member of GamecockCentral.com on the Rivals network and has been a part of the SFL since 2019. As a college football follower, he understands the enthusiasm that goes into the sport with the personal touch offered by this virtual league.

“People define themselves by their allegiances,” Herman explained. “This is more personal because it’s your player. The SFL really puts the fan into fantasy. I dreamed of gridiron glory. Major college football and the NFL don’t have much of a market for kicker without that much of a kick. It’s a dream realized.”

Herman’s also involved in the sale of the Seattle franchise, along with fellow league member Charles Dougherty, that’s caused such a stir.

“I’ve become sort of a Robert Irsay-like figure,” Herman joked.

It may be a niche, but this space is growing. SFL contests are televised nationally on a network called Eleven Sports that is available in 55 million homes on platforms such as DIRECTV, Verizon FIOS, and AT&T U-Verse. A radio station in Greenville, North Carolina carries games live. There are YouTube streams, and a dedicated Twitch channel for the league as well.

“The casual market is just finding out about us,” Irvine said. “99.9 percent don’t know about us because there are a lot of people and a lot of products out there. We’re in the stage of customer education on this. It’s got a lot of depth and it’s not the easiest thing to explain in two minutes to a person."

NewZoo, an e-sports and gaming thinktank, has closely tracked the rise of e-sports and predicts that the audience will rise to nearly 500 million people this year. Over 200 million of those are projected to be of the “enthusiast” variety. Sponsorship dollars have become quite lucrative to these companies: $540 million in 2019. NewZoo projects total revenues for e-sports to reach the $1 billion mark in 2020.

The SFL has two seasons, in the summer and winter, and game week is a big deal. All the league’s previous games are archived, and coaches hole up to study what opponents did in prior contests to build out their own strategy. Each team’s staff then submits a game plan. Within the league’s playbook, 20 play additions and drops per week on each side of the ball are allowed. Then the game’s A.I. takes over, leaving everyone to sit back and watch it unfold.

To Irvine, that’s the beauty in the SFL; there are no odd glitches, no throwing Hail Marys every down, no going for it on 4th and 35. In that way, it’s very much different than when folks jump on the controllers to play Madden.

“When gamers go online, it’s all about how to beat the game,” said Irvine. “It’s not about how to play the sport the game intends to represent. Instead of getting to dictate every single thing that happens in the game, I want coaches to put together a game plan and put that into an A.I. who’s job is solely to play football. It’s built on football logic, makes its decisions based on its algorithm. If you add real people, and add commentary and history and build that league atmosphere and environment, it brings a whole new meaning to watching a video game simulator result. By putting that time, energy, and effort into a game plan, it makes wins so much more rewarding and makes losses matter.”

The personalities within the league are made up of folks from a variety of backgrounds: a head trainer for a state university’s athletics department, doctors, lawyers, computer programmers. The community aspect serves many well, such as those that have anxiety issues and cannot go out in public as often.

“It becomes a very big therapeutic outlet for them,” said Herman.

There are former athletes on rosters, and there are those that never had the opportunity to play. Here is where the SFL steps in and gives them an opportunity to compete.

Said Irvine: “If you’re not athletic and skilled at a game, you’re not going to be on the stage anywhere else. We don’t care about that. Just come on in and we’ll put you on the stage.”

The Gladiators’ co-owner, Colin Northrup, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child and has seen his activities with the league as an important part of his life.

“Everybody grows up thinking they’re going to play in the Super Bowl or their favorite college team,” Northrup said during a featured segment on the league’s draft broadcast last year. “Just for me to have that aspect of it even though I physically can’t do it for circumstances that were out of my control and get that outlet and see people for not my disability but for who I am as a person and how I treat others, I hope I create a wonderful impression on all of them.”

The Northrups have made the SFL a family venture with Rick, Colin’s father, serving as a game analyst.

“I’ve seen Colin grow his skills and his ability working with other people, putting a team together, working together for a common goal and objective,” Rick said during the broadcast.

Remember Johnny Pichler and that Monday night must-win? Pichler, who grabbed the starting job in his rookie season, helped lead the Gladiators to a 31-13 win, passing for 162 yards and 2 touchdowns.

The team kept its playoff hopes alive and got the help it needed to make it to postseason play. The squad did ultimately bow out on April 11, a 10-point loss to Chicago.

The SLF’s unique setup means that it can continue – and thrive – at a time in which live events of all types are curtailed.

“In the age of social distancing, we’ve been social distancing for years in a way,” said Irvine. “It’s a way of bringing people together when we’re not together.”

Learn more about the SFL at SimulationFL.net