More than 6,000 miles away from Neyland Stadium, a random collection of players from around the world take the field across Israel every weekend.



The referees get paid. Players don’t. Neither do the coaches.



“For the most part, if you’re involved in Israeli football, you’re losing money,” said Alex Brill, one of the founders of the Judean Rebels, one of eight teams in the Israeli Football League. He owns the team now and was on the active roster until a few years ago. The league began in 2007, but it dates back to touch football games as early as 1988.



“The league wasn’t being taken seriously before,” Brill said. “We wanted to elevate football in Israel.”



Brill, 38, grew up in New York. His team’s head coach, Jaymes Kine, who spoke with The Athletic from Tel Aviv, grew up on the West Coast. But both of them and many of the Rebels have become Tennessee fans in recent years, despite the...