OT7 is redefining high school football with a content-driven approach and a roster stacked with some of the nation’s top young talent. This fast-paced, low-contact, red-zone-focused league brings a fresh twist to the game.
As it gears up for Season 4 in 2025, OT7 is set to reach an even bigger audience with games airing on NFL Network. This high-energy football league is the second major venture for New York-based Overtime, following the success of Overtime Elite (OTE) basketball, which debuted in March 2021.
OT7: When Will It Begin?
OT7 debuted in 2022, marking another bold move by Dan Porter’s Overtime. After the success of Overtime Elite, Porter was eager to expand into football, bringing the same energy and innovation to the gridiron. With OT7, he set out to create a league that blends top-tier talent with a content-driven format.
“A lot of football fandom in the United States is driven by college football,” Porter tells SportsPro. “I think almost 200 million Americans are college football fans. So you have an opportunity to have all of these folks play in the same area and you see all the top quarterbacks, the top receivers and everything else like that.
“We thought there was some whitespace. That could be structural, it could be undervalued assets in the ecosystem. It’s rarely [about] going into something head on [and] doing the same thing everyone else is doing.”
The league will continue its Week 1 on March 15, and Week 4 is scheduled to take place from April 5-6. The championship game can be expected to happen in the first week of June.
Fans can buy tickets for the event, which are already available for sale at OT7’s official website.
The Format of OT7
The new season of the 7-on-7 league will take place in Dallas, Texas. The league was started with a simple goal: to put on a great show and garner enough media attention.
“If you attend and you’re just like, ‘this is incredible’, and the athletes feel it was an amazing event to go to, then on the execution level you’ve got most of it right,” Porter said.
“If the media response is huge, once that happens major sponsors see that and say, ‘Wow, that looks amazing, we want to sign on for next year’. Those are the tentpole aspects building from the athlete, to the fan, to the potential sponsor.”
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So, they developed a new format to make the game more exciting for the fans. So, they had some key rules set to fulfill that purpose:
- No tackling is allowed. Players are downed using either flag pulling or two-hand touch.
- To maintain a fast tempo, quarterbacks must throw the ball within a set time limit.
- Scoring follows traditional football rules but includes bonus points for defensive stops and turnovers.
- Teams are made up solely of skill position players, meaning there are no offensive or defensive linemen.
Fans will get a front-row seat to watch the nation’s top high school football talent in action right in the heart of spring training. Which player are you keeping an eye on this season?
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