Pro-football for women
The New York Times has an Associated Press profile of the Women’s Professional Football League
The New York Times has an Associated Press profile of the Women’s Professional Football League
MSBNC has a story on women's football - including a profile of one team, the Cincinnati Sizzle.
A Reuters piece from last month about the NFL's efforts to figure out their women fans (40% of Superbowl viewers are women). Their market research shows that basically women fans don't want to be treated different than the men - meaning they don't need the game dumbed down for them, which is how some earlier NFL campaigns reached out to this fan base.
The Columbia Daily Tribune profiles NFL exec Jill Strafaci. She is "senior vice president of finance for the Miami Dolphins and one of the highest ranking female executives in the National Football League." Interesting fact from piece according to Women's Sports Foundation: "only 12 percent of the executives in the four major leagues are women. Like Strafaci, 80 percent them played college sports."
The Boston Globe runs a profile of NFL reporter Lesley Visser (she worked early in her career at the Globe) - tomorrow she will be honored at the NFL Hall of Fame.
A long piece in a Madision, WI paper (The Captial Times) on women who play contact sports and how more women are interested in playing football, rugby, etc.
The featured video on the Washingon Post's Sports Webpage is a piece on the D.C. Diva's - one of the 36 teams of the National Women's Football Association. Listen to the players in their own words tell why they are drawn to this sport, why they work so hard at it. Also some great footage of team members out on the street recruiting people to come watch the games. Real grassroots stuff. Here are some other posts from this blog on this growing five-year-old league.
Speaking of the National Women's Football League (see post below this one) - Camille Dodero from the Boston Phoenix (I used to work there with Camille) recently wrote a great piece about our Mass. local women's franchise - "Real girls play tackle:The Mass Mutiny, JP’s full-contact women’s pro-football team, pulls no punches" Camille's writing takes you right into the nitty gritty of this team who pour all their passion and hard work into a sport they love.
Catherine Masters, the founder of the National Women's Football Association, is hosting a new sports radio program -- Chic Sports Radio -- devoted to women's sports. The program started in early April and is based in Nashville, TN. It is broadcast on Friday nights from 7-8 p.m. on the Byline USA Radio Network, which has affiliates in 42 states and on Sirius satellite radio. Plus you can listen to their shows anytime on their Website. They cover a wide range of sports - golf, tennis, pool, women's football, etc. This Friday they will be interviewing a rep. from USABoxing about women's boxing- I'm sure they will talk about the upcoming fight between Anne Wolfe and James Johnson. Here is an article from the Tennessean about Masters' new show.
