The Lingerie Football League has survived a lot longer than most of us believed it would. Now in its third season, the LFL has 12 teams and plans to expand to as many as 10 new cities.
What the LFL doesn't have is a youth division. The reasons for that may seem obvious, but if we've learned anything about humanity in the last few million years, it's that we won't back down from doing something just because it's a terrible idea.
In a recent announcement, the LFL makes the dubious claim that parents are clamoring for an associated youth league to get their daughters involved in. The LFL pictures itself as a glass ceiling-shattering triumph for society, and says that "with the growing popularity around the LFL, younger and younger girls are starting to dream of playing LFL football."
Uh, no. Just because your league is still around about 2 1/2 years longer than anyone else expected and a few creepy middle-aged guys buy tickets to your games doesn't mean moms and dads are cutting felt into jersey numbers to sew to their daughter's training bras.
The league points to Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael Jackson, signing up to play football at her school. That's a nice story, but it's a stretch to assume the LFL motivated that. Girls have been trying to play football for decades, long before the LFL was anything more than a gimicky idea that morphed into a gimicky business plan and finally became a gimicky league.
Here's proof that the operative word in explaining the LFL's success is "lingerie," not "football." Ever heard of the Independent Women's Football League or the Women's Football Alliance? Of course not. Those are also semi-professional women's football leagues, but because they play in actualy uniforms and helmets, not panties and hockey helmets, most of the inhabitated universe has no idea they exist.
The LFL might be a completely legitimate brand of football, and girls deserve a youth league for themselves. Combining "lingerie" and "youth girls" in is not forward-thinking, though. It's plain weird.
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Somebody looked at this picture and said, "You know what would make this better? Little girls." Let's just pause to consider that for a moment.
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"I mean, with Babe [Ruth] and Reggie [Jackson], that's pretty good right there."
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September was scarier.
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This basketball-playing cat can't wait for the lockout to end so it can get back on the court.
