Come January, women will have the opportunity to prove football isn’t just a man’s sport.
The Women’s Indoor Football League will begin training camps in January to become the nation’s first true pro women’s football league.
“Right now the only place women have to play football at a high level is the LFL,” said Ray Blanchette, President and CEO of Blanchette Sports Holdings. “Even though they changed the name from the Lingerie Football League to the Legends League, it’s still the same thing. There’s just so many things not right with the LFL.
“I figured it was time to give the women an option for a different place to play where they can play the same high level of football in groups of athletes, not that those girls aren’t athletes. I don’t know how you would word it. Keeping the quality of play high and making the level of competition even better. And not having to play in bikinis too.”
Blanchette is no stranger to pro sports. His company owns and operates the National Baseball League and the Independent Hockey League and is currently in talks to establish six more leagues in five different sports.
“I have several leagues going,” Blanchette said. “The plan was to go public with all of them once we were ready and the one that garnered the most attention, and the most attention would be the one we would move forward with first. A few of the leagues got a lot of interest, but the WIFL was the one that got the most. I never ever dreamed it would be that one. I just never thought.”
On June 30, the WIFL will hold a tryout in Birmingham to fill the rosters of the Atlanta Aces, Birmingham Black Widows and Montgomery Mustangs. It will be similar to an NFL combine, with passing drills, 40–yard dash, 3-come drill and broad jump. The tryout costs $25 and is open to any woman interested in playing football at the professional level.
“We’re realistically hoping to get 50–75 girls, at least,” Blanchette said. “It’s a good market. Montgomery has some good players. It’s a good football market. Birmingham, same thing. There are a lot of women players up there. There’s a ton in Atlanta.”
For Blanchette, the WIFL isn’t about making money or becoming a business icon. At the end of the day, all Blanchette wants is to give women an outlet to play the game they love.
“The thing that really got to me is that I know a lot of these girls, and I have for a long time,” Blanchette said. “They train year-round for this, and they only play four games in the LFL. That’s just ridiculous. How can you gather up fan support for a team that’s only going to play two games at home for the season? It just doesn’t make sense.
“On the same token, some of the girls don’t live near the team. They have to drive one or two hours each way to go to practice, and they do so because they love the game. They don’t get paid. The LFL doesn’t pay its players. I just figured it was time that these girls that are that dedicated should get rewarded with some kind of compensation and be able to play a full season. Four games? You’re just hitting your prime. It just didn’t make sense. I decided it was time to do it the right way and give them a professional league that treated its players that way and offer them the same thing that the men do. Put the sport back into it, because the LFL is not a sport. It’s like wrestling. It’s entertainment.”
Blanchette understands the reluctance of sponsors and businessmen when first approached with plans of a women’s football league, but he also knows just how successful the WIFL can be if established the right way.
“From a player standpoint, it was the easiest thing I’ve done,” Blanchette said. “From a sponsor standpoint and on a business standpoint, it was extremely hard because people hear women’s football, and they tune you out right away. They don’t consider it. The non-followers don’t realize how big of a following they actually have. There’s thousands and thousands of women’s football players around the country, and some of them are good. I mean really, really good.”
While Blanchette planned for the WIFL to have teams nationwide, he and his partners decided the initial success of the league was most important and opted to only have teams in the East for the first year. With 15 teams ranging from New York to Tampa, the WIFL will give hundreds of women the chance to play pro football for the first time.
“We think it can absolutely sustain itself for five or 10 years and hopefully a lot longer, Blanchette said. “If we market it the right way and continue down the path and provide the atmosphere and type of game and type of environment for the players that we are offering, and we can keep that up, then I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t succeed.
“Now as big as it will get? Women’s sports do not get all that big. It doesn’t matter what league it is. It just doesn’t. It can sustain, it can be a long-lasting league, it can be successful, but it’s no way going to be an NFL or anything like that. We want to be on that level where when people think of women’s sports, a lot of them think of the WNBA first. We want the WIFL in that same breath. There’s really no reason it can’t be done.”
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