While the once-taboo subject of women participating in contact sports is now just about obsolete, there is still one touchy subject that remains with regards to women’s sport.
That is, men commenting on women’s sport.
When addressing the subject, a bloke runs the very real risk of coming across as a far, less charming and aesthetically pleasing Don Draper, all the while leaving himself open to an eternity of being challenged to arm-wrestling bouts by female athletes.
Of course, it’s also easy to go too far the other way, heaping over the top praise on female athletes every time they do something skilful (um… they’re athletes, remember?) until you’re that creepy bloke in the Aussie Opals Unitard, hiding in the bushes outside Lauren Jackson’s hotel room.
Women’s sport, from what I‘ve deciphered on the interwebs and channel surfing, is remarkably similar to men’s sport.
There’s generally less tattoos on display and the dressing sheds probably smell a bit nicer, but putting political/social/cultural mechanisms aside, the nuts and bolts of it are essentially all the same. Women start playing sport for exactly the same reasons as men; fun, fitness and bawdy, end-of-season trips.
What women’s sport doesn’t have is a lot of high profile leagues, which has the flow-on effect that anyone who has seen the players car-park outside a W-League match would be well aware of.
One women’s sporting league that did make headlines last week was the Lingerie Football League, a modified form of American football played in North America. In underwear.
Take a minute to Google it… and then quickly delete your browser history.
The LLFL even contains Aussie talent in former Raiders cheerleader Chloe Butler, and unlike the NFL, CFL or AFL, have decided to bend to fan boy blogging and bring the game down under in 2013 as part of its world domination plans (are you watching RLIF?)
Being a fan of anything played on the gridiron, I have followed the development of the sport with keen interest (delete browser history!) and like many was sceptical at first.
It’s difficult to bury the image of some fat Hollywood agent with a greasy ponytail, looking at media monitors following Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction at Super Bowl XXXVII and thinking “hmm, how can we stretch this out for 45min?”
Not true though, as both Janet’s misfortune and Lingerie Bowl 1 occurred simultaneously (leading to a massive spike in Tivo sales I believe).
The sport itself takes a bit of getting used to if you’re not a 14-year old schoolboy, as it is American football modified to the extreme.
With the players having backgrounds in a range of sports, the play is far from smooth (insert inappropriate joke here), and you have to wonder where all the ugly fat women are.
Granted LFL is only seven-a-side, so there’s less call for line-(wo)men, but when the male equivalent features blokes, the size of hippopotamus, surely a bit of beef would come in handy?
These qualms aside, the sport is very entertaining, fast and presented with a juiced-up WWE style vibe to pass the channel-flicking test.
It’s also honestly enjoyable, in an IPL sort of way, to see top quality female athletes in one spot, there’s even the offspring of ex-NFL players in the ranks.
Unlike the IPL though, it appears many of them are really there for the challenge as opposed to the, err, exposure.
While the players of the LFL originally shared in the game’s gate-takings, it is now a fully amateur league, so the girls are really just doing it for kicks.
The overriding sentiment seems to be that the athletes involved, love football, and they would rather play it in their smalls at a big stadium, as opposed to wearing the big kit at a small high school somewhere.
Sure, the attire of the girl’s might not be something you agree with, if just for the fact that the marketing Whizzes down at the NRL may get ideas.
But, just like how many feel uncomfortable with the sight of two women in a boxing ring, it’s ultimately the athlete’s decision to participate.
These girls just wanna play, and if these girls wanna play, you’ve got to let them.
So you may as well sit back and enjoy it.
Chris Chard
Expert
Spies tell me the darts is undergoing a resurgance at Tree Tops Tavern on the Goldy. As for the basketball, well who knows what's going to happen if those NBA blokes don't get their millions sorted out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingerie_Basketball_League CC
HardcorePrawn
Guest
Some years ago UK satellite channel L!ve TV (horrendous use of an exclamation mark, by the way) launched Topless Darts upon the world. Needless to say, the players weren't selected for the competition on the basis of their dart throwing skills, but instead on how they looked. It became one of their best-rated shows, although I don't believe that the sport itself caught on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L!VE_TV
Dave
Guest
LFL is so last week. Now there is topless basketball! http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/weird/topless-basketball-league-a-booby-prize-for-nba-fans-deprived-of-hoops-by-owners-lockout/story-e6frep26-1226204716284 Got to love americans.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
To be perfectly frank would rather see additional money flowing to the ANZ Championship, W-League and the start up idea of a national women's ARF league than into an LFL-style league. Whatever short-term benefits to women's sport I suspect it would come with long-term disadvantages.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Well, I know "Juniors" in Ice Hockey actually just refers to lower/feeder leagues, not necessarily Youth leagues... So hopefully that's what they had in mind...
Ben Carter
Roar Guru
Hi Chris - caught the LFL on FUELtv myself over the last weekend. and read somewhere else online (methinks ESPN?) of the potential Aussie league in the future. I like sport. I think women can be quite attractive (especially my lovely wife!). I think they can look good PLAYING sport. But for some reason the LFL really did seem, as a TV viewing experience, about as exciting as WWE. Not quite skillful enough to be taken seriously as a sport in itself (i.e. real arena football) BUT also not sufficiently delivering in the visual thrills department either as the name might promise or suggest (mainly due to all that padding and helmets!). Could it be a fun way to spend half an hour at 3am on a Saturday morning once in a while if you've channel-flicked past the cricket, La Liga, UFC and World Touring Car Championship? Sure. Will it take the place of any of those things on your sporting interest preference list? Probably not.
Chris Chard
Expert
Hi Kristen, Thanks for the post-great to get a a female perspective on the topic and nice to see there are some girls on the internet! Pretty sure Melbourne is in line for one of the LFL Australia franchises too, best of luck Cheers CC
Kristen
Guest
While it is mildly saddening that to get a high profile female's sport needs to dress them in skimpy outfits, it still seems a damn good idea. Chicks get to play, get all the attention, and actually make some money through sport (? not sure what they make out of it) Though, generally the best players in rugby and footy are a bit chunkier, which isn't what these players are, I'm a 17 year old girl who's been playing footy and I can tell you girls in my league would send these skinny girls flying as happens to me :P But hey, if I up my game next season and this thing comes to victoria I'll give it a crack :)
daniels
Guest
Ok, all of us men have said just how strange the whole idea of woman playing gridiron, and now you are telling me that little girls re playing it somewere. This will be Pedobears (Just search "pedobear" in google have a laugh, then also delete browser history) favourite sport
amazonfan
Guest
Only in America. Nothing against it personally, however IMO it's just too ridiculous for words, and it's hard to take it too seriously with the use of such a name.
mona
Guest
I remember reading somewhere that they were going to start a junior league for LFL. Let that one sink right in, boys.
JohnB
Guest
Hi Chris. My excuse is I was in transit, and I'm sticking to that. I've also heard there are other things to go and see in Bangkok, though I've never quite figured out what. Probably mostly temples, traditional dancing, that sort of thing. It looked like they were playing the lingerie football on a basketball court, with artificial grass laid down, and like ice hockey there were no sidelines as such - they could run into the side wall, bounce off and just keep going. Maybe it would be entertaining watched live? Fair to say they seemed to have a crowd watching it. As to whether it would ever become an actual sport, as opposed to "sports entertainment" - even in America you'd have to wonder how many good athletes are left to play this in any serious way once tennis, golf, Olympic sports, soccer, basketball, volleyball, softball, rugby and no doubt others have taken their shares.
daniels
Guest
I watched a few minutes of this on fuel and found it was a little wierd. I mean, if the NFL was a measure of the type of people who play, i dont imagine anybody will want to see that. I see this and think, womans rugby would be far nicer, and more attractive, if we had woman like that playing. I mean, just imagine 16 woman who look like models, dressed in bikinis getting down and dirty in a scrum
Namibia Norm
Guest
I've always thought that there should be a women's NRL and AFL playing modified versions of the game as curtain raisers to the main event. For example, the rugby league could be 7's and play under the safe-play rules (eg: no lifting in tackles, instant dismissal for fighting etc. There are plenty of good female athletes playing sports like touch footy, oztag, soccer, hockey, athletics etc who would love to give it a crack. The lingerie part is probably debatable, though I guess it can be decided on a case by case basis.
Chris Chard
Expert
Arena football, scary alien creatures, plenty of violence, outrageous over acting and completely pointless nudity makes this film a must see B-Grade classic!
HardcorePrawn
Guest
I didn't say it was good advice! As for Starship Troopers, I don't recall there being a football scene (although Google has just confirmed it for me), my abiding memory of that film was the shower scene... Dina Meyer in the shower, lingerie football, jelly-wrestling? I think I need a lie down!
Chris Chard
Expert
She's like Julie from Mighty Ducks 2 in real life! Legend. Updated link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Rh%C3%A9aume
Chris Chard
Expert
Hi Hardcore Can't argue with anytihng you've written there-....except for the part about someone taking Sepp Blatter's advice, we all know how well that's going down at the moment! Damn it I just want to watch a game of arena type, modified American Football in an indoor stadium during summer with the air con cranked and the music blaring. Personally I blame 'Starship Troopers' and 'Kurt Warner's Arena Foootball Unleashed' for this. Cheers CC
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Link is dead, but if you search for the name it will auto-suggest the right name.
HardcorePrawn
Guest
Hello CC, I'm not really sure that opening up a new audience to American Football is really what the organisers of the LFL had in mind! I think it more likely that they took Sepp Blatter's advice about female soccer players wearing tight shorts and low cut shirts to entice bigger crowds to heart, and applied the same "logic" to their favourite sport. I can see how someone watching Rugby 7s, or 20-20 Cricket (or T20, or Twenty20, or Big Bash, whatever they're calling it this week), or even playing five-a-side soccer for the first time may be open to investigating the parent game, but I'm pretty sure that Greco-Roman wrestling hasn't had a huge upturn in viewers and spectators since someone had the bright idea of putting a couple of near-naked girls in a paddling pool filled with jelly.