What do you get when you combine the excitement of professional football with a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show? Why, the Lingerie Football League of course. Now, I may have overemphasized the “professional” and “football” part of that statement, but there is plenty of eye candy out there to pique the interest of both the hardcore male enthusiast and your usual strip club crowd alike.
Now, sure, there have been a plethora of leagues to try and make an impact, but most of them were extremely fleeting, and had little corporate interest. The only one that really lasted was the old AFL, which eventually merged with the NFL in 1970.
There have been plenty of failed experiments though. The USFL, with Donald Trump for example, lasted three seasons, and tried filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, and while the court did find in their favor, it was for a whole dollar, automatically tripled to three bucks under antitrust legislation. Needless to say, they folded up shop quick.
However, I digress. We’re talking about scantily clad babes playing football! How can you get something more American than that? Quite simply, you can’t. Football plus sex appeal is a winner…or is it? Certainly guys like half naked women, but do they want to see them butcher football, when they can easily watch talented pros in the NFL and ogle the cheerleaders as they dance on the sidelines?
Well, that’s what the founders of the league are banking on. For the uneducated, the Lingerie Football League plays on a field with similar dimensions to the now seemingly dead Arena Football League: 50 yards in length, 30 in width, and eight yard deep end zones. It’s seven on seven action, and each team carries 14 active and 6 inactive players on their roster.
There is no kicking in the LFL, no extra points or field goals. Instead, when a team scores a touchdown they have the option of trying to convert from the 2 yard line for one point, or from the five for two points. There are two fifteen minute halves, as opposed to four quarters like most football fans are used to, and should a game go to overtime, sudden death is eight minutes.
The LFL consists of ten teams, spaced around the country. They are as follows: the Miami Caliente, the Tampa Breeze, Chicago Bliss, New York Majesty and Philadelphia Passion make up one conference, while the Denver Dream, Dallas Desire, Seattle Mist, San Diego Seduction and the Los Angeles Temptation make up the other.
Now, here’s the kicker: while the regular season began September 4th and runs through January 29th of 2010, each team plays just FOUR games. That’s right, five months to play four games, two at home and two on the road. There is one game a week out of the ten clubs. Not much to get excited about when you only see your home team twice a season in person now is there?
For example, take last Friday’s game between the Seattle Mist and the Denver Dream. Seattle won by a score of 28-19 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, with game time temperatures in the low 30s, with a wind chill of 12, and snow flurries. While some things were shriveling in the frigid Rocky Mountain air, you can bet that there were plenty of things hard enough to cut glass on the field.
Under the scheduling system however, the Mist won’t play again until a trip to play the Los Angeles Temptation on November 28th, while the Dream don’t play their fourth and final game until January 8th, 2010 against the San Diego Seduction. Perhaps the nearly three month break will prove beneficial to the Dream, who are 0-3 and most likely on the outside looking in for the playoffs.
One thing is for certain, the LFL has got the slick marketing campaign down. Beautiful women, their firm, toned, curvaceous bodies oiled up, banging and slamming into each other, while talking trash. It’s like wrestling, only with actual impact. They seem to be relying on male fans to buy in, and buy in heavily, as to purchase single games to watch online will set you back 7.95, or the season package of all 20 games would have been $125 should you have gone that route.
Will the LFL survive? At this point it’s too early to tell. The Lingerie Bowl always had great success during halftime of the Super Bowl, but that was a major reason why. It was halftime of the Super Bowl. Most of the time a lousy act that no one wants to see is slotted, and let’s face it, you can’t say it enough times: guys like seeing half naked women.
Will that lust and desire for beauty equal ratings for the LFL and potential success? Or will it lead to a swift, crashing demise that will make other potential people looking to reinvent the wheel reconsider their plans for another decade or longer? One thing you can’t argue with is the old adage nothing ventured, nothing gained. By taking a chance, the LFL is making a bold statement. Hopefully, for them and the women that put themselves out there, it pans out.