What used to be called the Lingerie Football League up until 2013, the current Legends Football League is being billed as growing at a pace far greater than other American sport in history.
Through rebranding efforts, domestic and international expansion and a new direction, the Legends Football League plans to surpass World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a commercial global sports property. It’s certainly a bold claim for a league still in its infancy, but nonetheless, the league hopes its change to the Legends Football League will equate to long-term rewards.
As the Chicago Bliss and Atlanta Steam square off in the Legends Football League championship tonight at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California, the league currently boasts 10 American franchises, with the league identifying an additional 16 markets in the United States.
According to LFL Founder and Chairman, Mitch Mortaza, based on conversations with different sponsorship and branding agencies, the rebranding of the Lingerie Football League was a necessary move in order for the league to continue its operation.
“It was pretty unanimous that the next step in the maturation of this would be more toward placing the emphasis on the athlete and the sport versus simply the marketing aspects of it,” said Mortaza, who added that the LFL was and still is rebuilding an entire organization. “That was the primary mindset in changing to the Legends Football League.”
The league’s athletes, teams and staff welcomed a switch in the league tagline to ‘Women of the Gridiron’, modifications in equipment protection and a 180-degree change to how the league was marketed. At first, though, fans saw the rebranding differently.
“The fan reception was not very positive at first, to be very frank,” Mortaza said. “They built a following within these different teams. The LFL was viewed as the ‘Rock n’ Roll Football’ brand. …They fell in love with that concept. Fans thought the league was going in the direction of the NFL. That was the initial knee-jerk reaction of the fans. They were not happy about it.”
While league attendance numbers have grown approximately 22 percent each season since 2009, last year’s attendance numbers dropped by 12 percent. The decline could be partially attributed to fans not being familiar with the rebranding efforts or even fans possibly leaving the sport altogether. Despite the attendance decline, web sentiment for the league has increased almost 9 percent (+40 to +43.4) since the rebranding started over 20 months ago, according to General Sentiment, a social analytics company.
The LFL's core demographic has remained between 18-34 at roughly 70 percent, with a concerted effort at targeting young adults. With the rebranding, though, the league has seen its female fan base increase to almost 45 percent.
“When you previously went to games, you saw a game heavily dominated by men,” Mortaza said. “Now, when you go to games, you’ll see a large consortium of women. That’s welcoming. It’s good for business and good for the sport.”
The LFL — which claims profitability since its inception in 2009 — is now comprised of LFL North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico), LFL Europe and LFL Oceania (Australia, New Zealand). Europe will host clubs in Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Dublin, Manchester and Paris in its inaugural season next year.
“The most amount of growth will happen in Europe over the next 10 years,” Mortaza said. “This is just scratching the surface of where we want to be.”
Through a partnership with Relativity Media/NBC Universal, the league plans to launch the LFL Reality Series and now is in the pre-production stages of LFL, The Movie, with Mortaza calling the feature film “a next generation A League of Their Own.”
Despite not having any present sponsors, Mortaza said that there is interest from two international sports brands looking to sign “blanket deals” across all of the league’s platforms. Even potentially more promising, the league will soon be announcing a major sports partner, who was also involved in the rebranding, that will be investing in the sport.
“Now, that broadcasters are responding to it and sponsors are responding to the rebranding, people are taking notice that, ‘Hey, this is a real sport’,” Mortaza said. “That was the biggest hump — people believing that this would be a real sport and that these are real athletes. The more and more content getting out on television and online, it’s really changing the perception of it. That’s enabled us to really grow the sport.”
