They may wear purple, throw a football, and have impressive triceps, but the players on the Baltimore Charm are emphatically not the Baltimore Ravens. For one, they’re women; for another, they play in their underwear.
Did you even know Baltimore had a lingerie football team? I sure didn’t. Maybe that’s because I’m, ahem, not in the target demographic. Or maybe it’s because the league has struggled with image issues in recent years, renaming itself the Legends Football League and having a hard time attracting viewers. The Baltimore Sun reports that our local team just cancelled its last scheduled home game, which was to be played on Saturday, in part due to low attendance. With no plans to reschedule the game or to find a new home for the team, this may be the end of the Baltimore Charm.
There’s something very dated about the LFL’s blatant attempt to attract viewers by making women run around in their underwear. While the league claims that it celebrates women’s athleticism, that seems disingenuous at best. There are already a bunch of sports teams that do exactly that, and they don’t make their players wear cleavage-enhancing bras when they take to the field.
The league’s commissioner told ABC News last year that objectification is part of the LFL’s business model. “We just happen to have an entire league of Tom Brady’s and David Beckham’s and Maria Sharapova’s,” he said. Which is confusing, because Tom Brady and David Beckham are dudes, and there are no dudes running around in their underwear during LFL games.
So while I’m not happy to see anyone (maybe) lose their jobs, if this marks the end of the Baltimore Charm, I won’t be sad. It’s nice to know that sometimes sex doesn’t sell.
