The game riffs on the one you probably played as a kid. Players spend 60 minutes working their way up and down a standard football field delineated by four 25-yard zones. Each team features a dozen players and fields seven at a time. Everyone plays offense and defense. Games start with a throw-off, with a player of the coach's choice hurling the ball as far as possible. The receiving team has four plays to reach the next 25-yard zone, then the next, and so on until it scores or throw-punts (no kicking, remember?). The game moves quickly---the quarterback has just four seconds to heave the ball or start running, and the defense can rush the backfield after two seconds. Someone pulls your flag? You're down.

Touchdowns from less than 50 yards earn six points. Anything longer earns seven. After scoring a touchdown, teams can go for one, two, or three more points with a conversion. Tackling, blocking, and kicking? Strictly forbidden. The clock runs constantly, until the last two minutes of the first half and the last five of the second half, when the clock stops after each play.

The league launches next year with the Flag Football US Open, an epic tournament that Lewis envisions drawing 1,000 teams and a seven-figure prize. Winning teams will recruit from losing teams, until only the best remain. Think of of it as American Idol or American Ninja Warrior, but with a football. The eight best teams will then play the inaugural AFFL season.

To pull this off, Lewis hit up friends, family and investors. Everyone called him crazy. They pointed to the long list of wannabes that hoped to challenge the NFL. Remember the XFL? Ever watched arena football? The United Football League lasted all of four seasons (go Destroyers), and even the NFL's European expansion flopped. The NFL has many problems, but disruption is not one of them.

When I point this out, Lewis waves me off. Those leagues couldn't execute, he says. You can see his point. The XFL debuted to enormous ratings in 2001 but quickly fell apart because no one wants football with wrestling. Every challenger failed because they offered, well, crap. "It would be like, 'Oh, it's the same game as the pros, with people who aren't as good," says Darren Rovell, a sports business reporter at ESPN. People do want more football, Rovell says, but the game must offer something novel.

The novelty of flag football, of course, contains something at least one potential investor considered a downside: the complete lack of violence. "He felt the violence of football was the primal element, that it was what drew people to football," Lewis says. Eager to prove the naysayers wrong, Lewis and his team scoured social media data, trying to figure out what people talk about while watching NFL games. Turns out words like touchdown, pass, run, and interception come up a lot. Hit, block, and tackle? Not so much. The NFL offers the Red Zone channel to show non-stop scoring, but as Lewis says, "there's no Hard Hits channel." If social media is any indication, then you'll find all of the most exciting and shareable parts of the NFL in flag football.

The more Lewis researched, the more opportunity he saw on social media. For instance: Football remains America's most popular sport, yet no NFL players appear in top 20 of ESPN's list of the 100 most famous athletes. Only Tom Brady (No. 21) and Cam Newton (No. 47) crack the top 50. Lewis firmly believes that's because NFL players are faceless gladiators that viewers can't relate to. In other sports, "whether you're rooting for a guy or against the guy, he's a character, and you feel like you have a relationship to them," Lewis says. Eliminating the helmets and pads makes it easier for viewers to see, and relate to, players. And the AFFL wants those players tweeting, streaming, snapping, and posting nonstop---things that'll earn you a fat fine in the NFL---to deepen their relationships with fans.

Prototype Pigskin

With no players union to fight, billion-dollar TV contracts to protect, or traditions to uphold, the AFFL has been free to use technology in novel ways to enhance the game.