Jock Itch Foxxy Football pummels Denver: Insert tight end joke here

Women’s sports are usually given short shrift when placed alongside their male counterparts: The WNBA is widely viewed as a joke to most male basketball fans, and while women’s collegiate sports are given a quiet, almost begrudging respect, the female take on football is not only universally dismissed when measured against the men, it’s not even acknowledged. Foxxy Football is the latest all-female sports league to enter the male-dominated football scene, and even if it will never garner the same amount of fans, it should at least gain your respect.

The whole notion of Foxxy Football is kind of silly, and you can’t really be blamed for giggling the first time you hear of it. After all, the league is predicated on hot chicks wearing skimpy clothes while playing tackle football. The Lingerie Bowl played during the halftime of the Super Bowl a few years back didn’t do the sport any favors, with women wearing barely anything, playing grab-ass on pay-per-view. But Foxxy Football is actual tackle football, and once the initial chuckle is over with, you’ll find it’s a genuine sport with serious female athletes who play the game just as hard as the men.

I caught a Foxxy Football game out at the Bladium Sports And Fitness Club, and came away impressed with not only how hard-hitting it was, but also the general support behind it. The game was faster than I expected, was very physical, and kept me interested with abundant scoring. A healthy crowd to cheer the ladies helped as well.

Foxxy Football is played in four 10-minute quarters, utilizing the 50-yard indoor football field with the usual 10-yard first down lines. Six points are scored for a touchdown and conversions are worth one point or two depending on whether you run or pass. It’s the uniforms, though, that really set the game apart: The ladies of Foxxy Football wear shoulder pads and a hockey-style helmet with a plastic face cage. The snug, bicycle-style shorts are probably the only piece of equipment you could classify as “foxxy,” but really the uniform is about as alluring as most well-padded athletic equipment can be.

The Hooters-on-the-gridiron angle is certainly a necessary marketing gimmick to get you, the serious football fan, to come out and buy a ticket. But after a short time, I completely forgot about what the players were wearing and focused entirely on the game. I guess if you wanted to come out with the hopes of seeing some skin, it very well could happen, but you’d pretty much be a creep for doing that.

And I didn’t get the impression there were lonely, creepy dudes there hoping to see some errant flesh exposed. The fairly large crowd seemed to comprise friends and family, and the overall the vibe of the place was upbeat with loud cheering, flowing beer, and kids shooting hoops behind a set of bleachers. Despite the good atmosphere, the Bladium isn’t the best place for this kind of spectator sport. It works great if you’re going to watch a buddy play some rec-league soccer of inline hockey, but because of the limited seating surrounding the artificial turf side of the club, it made it hard to see some of the action on different ends of the arena. That’s not to say you can’t get right up against the glass for some of the plays, but if Foxxy Football wants to keep its attendance up, a better seating arrangement needs to be worked out.

Is Foxxy Football sexist? On the surface—definitely. So make your tight end jokes and be done with it. Once you get past that, you’ll find serious competitors playing a rough sport. No one will argue that there are higher brands of football to be watched, but these ladies play hard and probably do so because they have more to prove to your average knucklehead sports fan. Arena Football failed in Denver because we have the Broncos. (And also because Arena Football sucks.) So you’d think something like this wouldn’t stand a chance, but it’s such a niche sport, it may just have its place. It’s just too bad the “foxxy” aspect is what is used to market the league. It may unfortunately turn some people away, which is a shame because the women were portrayed in nothing but a positive light—other than trying to knock each other’s blocks off—once they hit the turf.

See for yourself as the Foxxy Football playoffs happen this weekend; the championship game goes down Aug. 21. You may come for the skin, but you’ll stay for the football.