Sure, the Chargers are on the field Friday, but so are the players in the NFL's newest competition, which boasts a local team among its ranks.
The Lingerie Football League is the brainchild of the programmers who gave birth to the Lingerie Bowl, which was intended to counterprogram the Super Bowl half-time show. In Friday's LFL game, the Miami Caliente will go head to head with the Chicago Bliss in Illinois.
Local fans will have to wait until Sept. 11, when the San Diego Seduction will meet the Seattle Mist in Washington state. Two games of the team's four-game season are scheduled for the San Diego Sports Arena . Tickets for the local games start at $15 for the nosebleed section and are as high as $105 for the sideline VIP seats.
It's a different game from what fans are used to: There are only seven players on the field from each team at a time, and the field is half as long, for starters. The women's uniforms appear to be bra-type tops and short shorts, and they wear helmets and pads. The Seduction's Web site has to be one of the first football team's sites to feature hair-and-makeup and tanning credits.
You probably won't be shocked to hear that the league has its critics, including Courtney Martin, who Reuters described as a feminist writer.
“This is objectification at it's most pernicious -- give women an opportunity to participate in a sport that they haven't had the chance to do for pay ... but only let them do it if they're stereotypically pretty and willing to do it in their underwear," Martin wrote on Feministing.com.
The San Diego team will play its local games on Oct. 16 and Jan. 8.
