There’s going to be little to nothing to see of the women’s Lingerie Football League this year in Kent.
Commissioner Mitchell S. Mortaza announced Thursday that the Las Vegas-based league will shift its season to the spring and summer of 2013 rather than the normal fall-winter schedule the league had its first three years.
That means no Seattle Mist games at Kent’s ShoWare Center in 2012.
“Since premiering in 2009, LFL United States has drawn incredible success which has included sell-out crowds, aggressive franchise expansion and record television ratings, all of which leading to being called the fastest growing sports league in the U.S.,” Mortaza said on the LFL website. “Despite this success, we feel that our U.S. franchise can reach greater heights with a shift of our regular season schedule from a fall and winter format to spring and summer schedule.”
Mortaza said the league will focus this fall on its new LFL Canada division and work to start a league in Australia in the summer of 2013.
“Thus in 2012, we have officially moved, not suspended the LFL U.S. season to April 2013,” Mortaza said. “This move in schedule enables our LFL U.S. teams extra preparation which ultimately will greatly improve the product on the field in 2013.”
Tim Higgins, ShoWare Center general manager, just heard the official decision Thursday.
“We’ve had some inkling it was possibly going to happen,” Higgins said during a phone interview. “We’ve been talking to the league about the upcoming season and they said it could be something in the works.”
The Seattle Mist drew large crowds each year to its two home games per season at the ShoWare Center.
“It does well, we’ve had great crowds,” Higgins said. “As far as we’re concerned going to 2013 is a shift in season.”
Seattle held tryouts April 7 in Kent for a team that now won’t take the field for 12 more months.
“The focus now is to not only be the ‘fastest growing sports league in the U.S.’ (according to Businessweek) but globally,” Mortaza said.
ShoWare officials had a solid association with the league.
“From our end, we never had any issues,” Higgins said. “It’s been a great relationship.”
The 12-team league features scantily clad women playing seven-on-seven tackle football on a 50-yard field. They play 17-minute halves. Each offense features a quarterback, center, two running backs and three receivers.
The players wear helmets with clear face shields, shoulder pads, sports bras, panties, elbow and knee pads.
Players are not paid and attend tryouts to make the team rosters.
Higgins expects the league to return next year.
“We feel good it’ll be back in 2013,” he said.
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