Monday, November 9, 2009

Lingerie Football League coverage is as skimpy as its players’ uniforms

The inaugural season of the Lingerie Football League continues to merit scant coverage in the mainstream media.
I cry foul. You can’t discriminate against a sport because the teams are stacked with beautiful women wearing sexy underwear.
From what I can tell these ladies take the sport seriously. The videos I’m seen online show players taking hard hits and getting roughed up. The women quarterbacks throw passes better than a lot of men.
But newspapers and local television stations worried about being branded sexist have avoided covering the nascent league. Typically the league merits some coverage when the first game in played in a local market. But after that – nada.
The future of the LFL is still a question. Attendance looks small from the photos and videos I’ve seen. And with broadcast coverage limited to pay-per-view, it won’t get much publicity from the media.
Making matters worse, most of the teams don’t even play in their namesake cities.
The New York Majesty plays its home games in Reading, Pa. The Philadelphia Passion plays its home games in Trenton, N.J. Other teams play in remote suburbs like the Chicago Bliss playing in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
The LFL has played nine of 20 games so far. The league has only scheduled one game a week. The Dallas Desire is the top-ranked team at 3-0. But two teams still have only played one game and the Tampa Breeze doesn’t open its season until Dec. 4 against Chicago, which hasn't played since the first LFL game on Sept. 4.
It’s hard to find detailed coverage of the LFL, even from the league’s own sites, which include LFLus.com and its blog, LFL Unlaced. It also has Facebook, MySpace and Twitter pages.
John Pozadzides provided good commentary on the Oct. 23 matchup of the Los Angeles Temptation and the Dallas Desire at One Man's Blog. (Check out his article and Flickr photos here.)

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