AEG Ogden backs Lingerie Football League tour

Venue manager AEG Ogden is to promote the Lingerie Football League (LFL) during its upcoming Australia tour and is understood to be testing the market for sponsors.

LFL, the USA's fastest growing sports league (according to BusinessWeek) will stage its first All-Fantasy Game Tour in Australia in June prior to a potential launch of an Australia LFL in 2013.

Playing a modified version of US gridiron (NFL) football, lingerie football first hit the playing fields and TV screens as an alternative half time entertainment program on Super Bowl Sunday with the 'Lingerie Bowl' attracting millions of viewers worldwide.

The appeal of the sport led to the 2009 establishment of the LFL - consisting of 12 teams from across the United States who play a 20 week season culminating in the Lingerie Bowl. This year's broadcast shattered records for channel MTV2 with an estimated 43 million viewers worldwide.

LFL has been broadcast in Australia on Fuel TV since 2009.

The Australian 2012 LFL All-Fantasy Game Tour will feature 32 of the best players across the league as the Western Conference battles the Eastern Conference in what a press release claims to be "one of the most entertaining live experiences in all of sports" offering "fun for the whole family."

Lingerie Football League, LLC Chairman and founder Mitchell S. Mortaza explains "we could have never imagined the incredible response of Australia to LFL Football. While we have received offers previously to bring live exhibition games to Australia, we have never had the opportunity to team with the experience and attitude of the guys we have partnered with here in Australia. "This is truly a significant moment in the short history of the league as we take our first step toward introducing Aussies to LFL Football and the eventual premiere of LFL Australia in 2013."

While initial promotion in Australia has focussed on LFL being "family entertainment" Mortaza has previously admitted that the league is marketed toward "beer-drinking college students aged 21 and up."

Previous plans to introduce lingerie football in Australia have been criticised by the Australian Womensport and Recreation Association (AWRA), which, in September last year issued a statement expressings its "disappointment" that "a denigrating and sexist form of entertainment, in the shape of a Lingerie Football League (LFL), has found its way to Australia's shores."

AWRA President Janice Crosswhite added "this League is sexist and demeaning to all women. In a society where women have been seeking and starting to secure equal rights and respect on and off the sporting field, this development undoes so much of the hard work being done by many sporting organisations across the country.

"The whole idea of (lingerie football) being considered a sport is ridiculous.

"In a country such as Australia where we have been working so hard to have female athletes respected for their performance, rather than their appearance or shape of the their bodies, it is a shame that we have taken a huge step backwards through the establishment of this League.

"This lingerie league has little to offer the knowledgeable sport participant or spectator, and we hope that the league fails."

AEG Ogden did not respond to a request for information on their involvement in the LFL's All-Fantasy Game Tour.

Cities and venues that will host the Tour are expected to be announced in April.

For more information go to www.lflinaustralia.com

29th September 2011 - AWRA CONDEMNS PLANS FOR ‘LINGERIE FOOTBALL’