SLNFL, Second Life National Football League
The second day of the 7 article series Man Week is here, and today we will talk about the manliest of sports: American Football!
There’s an American football league in SL, with players, cheerleaders, managers and the whole deal. Thou the players don’t actually play the game, it’s still their characters that play it, in the off world, on-line game Madden PC 08. Each player gets their avatar made into a player in Madden and they work out each week in SL to gain the points needed to make the Madden player better. You could say that the SL and Madden avatars are the same.
Some team owners pay their players and offers them a place to live, but all owners are willing to take care of their players to keep them happy and keep their performance up.
Players of SLNFL has become a bit of SL celebrities, they are recognized by name at clubs and they are most often surrounded by people, just like RL NFL-stars.
They are trying to keep it as realistic as possible, they even have a medical center for injured players.
The cheerleaders have a more active role in SL, as they promote and participates in events, trains and performs various forms of entertainments and cheers the players of the team, helping them gain recognition.
How are the games played? Each Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday there are 4 matches played. This means all teams get a chance to play each week. These games are recorded and broadcasted on the in world television network. Each team that are playing are gathered at their home location to cheer on and generally get into the game as it plays before them. The manager of the team is the one controlling their team in the game and thus he has control over the tactics, but it’s the players that decides how their characters are trained.
How to sign up? At the SLNFL base there is a recruitment center with a list of all teams. You simply pick the team you want to join, fill out an application and drop in the box below the team. There’s a separate application for cheerleaders that can be found at each teams board too.
So what does players and cheerleaders get out of playing for a SLNFL team? Well, fame, recognition and often a nice pay check is just the bonus, the real pay-off is the comradery of the team and the experience of really being part of something huge.
Article by: Morphman
Photos by: Morphman
Have you checked out soccer in SL?, especially the VStex system? This is a viable system that can be played in SL albeit there are problems with organization.