Eagles

Overtime and Cam Newton are Launching a 7-on-7 Football League

By Kyle Pagan

Published: Mar 29th, 2022 · 12:08 PM EDT

---

Adam Schefter reported NFL Free Agent Cam Newton and Overtime are launching a 7-on-7 league in June:

Overtime — which launched the Overtime Elite basketball league last year — is now partnering with free-agent QB Cam Newton on a new 7-on-7 football league called OT7, designed to appeal to Next-Gen and college football fans. League launches in June.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 29, 2022

So many new football leagues.

We have the new USFL playing games down in Birmingham, AL. The XFL and The Rock are partnering with the NFL to innovate the league. Now we have Overtime and Cam Newton partnering to bring a 7-on-7 football league to the masses. You probably know Overtime from their social media pages, but recently they’ve been getting into developing sports leagues. The first one being the Overtime Elite program, a league where they pay top high school basketball players six figure deals:

“But by betting on the popularity of high school basketball players, Overtime is taking a more radical, and potentially transformative, approach. Overtime’s pitch to players: forget college basketball. OTE promises to pay six-figure salaries and offer access to high-level coaching and skill development in a sports-academy setting, to prepare athletes for a pro career. OTE has also hired teachers and academic administrators so that players can secure their high school diplomas. The operation has financial backing from an All-Star investor lineup, which includes Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions fund, Drake, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and a slew of NBA players like Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Trae Young. In March, Overtime raised $80 million.”

The Overtime 7-on-7 program will be different, according to CNBC’s Jabari Young:

“OT7 football players, however, will not be paid for playing. Overtime said the move protects college eligibility but added it plans to pay for participation expenses such as hotel rooms and meals, but excludes equipment costs.

OT7 will feature up to 24 teams playing eight games each and a playoff round to determine a champion. The games will be played on 40-yard line segments of a regulated 100-yard NFL field, run 20 minutes each with no pads, and tackling is restricted. OT7 will allow one-hand touch for stoppage of play.” 

I understand if one hand touch doesn’t get you excited right away, but 7-on-7 is a beast down in the South and Southwest. There’s a very good chance if you root for a Power 5 school on Saturdays a lot of your best recruits played in 7-on-7 growing up. Travis Hunter, the nation’s #1 recruit that Deion Sanders poached from Florida State, played on Cam Newton’s 7-on-7 squad last summer: