Over the past couple of years, WBD Sports’ Bleacher Report and House of Highlights have done some interesting things with a “House of Highlights Creator League” for basketball. That concept has seen them have different social media personalities go head to head on the court, and that’s even led to them hosting finals in the Final Four host city around that event. Now, the Creator League idea is expanding to football, and, interestingly enough, it will also see a one-on-one concept there. The new version of this begins Wednesday evening in Los Angeles: here’s more on that from a release:
House of Highlights’ sports league for creators – will cast popular online personalities in a head-to-head competition of 1v1 football starting today. Eight athletic creators with an aggregated following of more than 20 million will take to the field to catch passes against a single defender and earn points for the chance to win the ultimate grand prize of $50,000.
Creator League 1v1 Football will livestream from Silver Lake Park in Los Angeles today on the Creator League YouTube channel at 7 p.m. ET. MMG – with a collective following of more than 4 million – will serve as the official co-streamer for the season.
…Each game will pair one creator in the receiver position with a quarterback of his choice lining up against another competitor. Points are attached to each catch (1 point for a reception, 3 points for a touchdown) or turnover (1 point for defender). The first player to reach 12 points will win the game in a best of three format.
A one-on-one concept feels maybe less natural in football than in basketball, but it makes sense for something as personality-focused as this. And the personality-focused concept has been paying off for Bleacher Report and House of Highlights so far, with them finding success with House of Highlights Showdown and Highlight House before the full Creator League launch. The last basketball season of Creator League saw more than 139 million cross-platform views, and they’ve gained more than 320,000 subscribers across their social channels in the last three months alone. So we’ll see if that momentum continues into their football efforts here.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.