National Football League

US team favored in world football championship

Published Jun. 29, 2010 12:09 a.m. ET

foxsports

Usually when a woman is standing on the sidelines of a football game, she is there as a team employee, a sideline reporter or journalist, or shaking her “groove thang” as a cheerleader. It has become commonplace to hear women announcing the game as commentators, providing analysis to television viewers.

It’s just that you just don’t usually hear them barking out the plays from the line of scrimmage. Welcome, America, to women’s football.

On Sunday with much of the country still recovering from the Americans' loss in the World Cup or wondering where LeBron James will hold court for the next six years, the United States beat Austria 63-0 in the inaugural International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Women’s World Championship. The tournament features six teams from around the world, playing in the first ever competition of this sort. The American women are heavy favorites to emerge from Stockholm, Sweden as the winners.

The United States is the top seed in the tournament, a ranking determined by the number of women in each country who play football. Every participant nation is guaranteed two games in the first round and then will vie for a chance at the medal round, held this Sunday.

The sport, to be honest, has often lived in the shadows.

Women’s football has failed, seemingly, to capture the public attention, despite the precedence for other women’s sports to grab the occasional headline. Females in basketball have gone mainstream, from Lisa Leslie and Cheryl Miller to Diana Taurasi and Rebecca Lobo. In 1999, the women’s national soccer team captured the hearts and minds of the country, with the penalty kick shootout win over China etching an all-time Nielsen rating for the sport of soccer in the United States and producing an iconic moment when Brandi Chastain revealed her sports bra to the world.

Even the women’s hockey team garnered some attention in the most recent Winter Olympics, getting a silver medal. Women’s track has produced stars and controversy and women’s tennisis often more discussed and followed in this country than the men’s game.

But don’t blame the sport, says the head coach of the United States, John Konecki.

“Women’s football is in its relative infancy – [this past] Sunday we were playing in the first game of the first women’s world championship in football,” Konecki said. “Golf and tennis dates back to the early 20th century. The sport is growing.”

Konecki, a highly respected high school coach in Illinois who also coaches the Chicago Force in the women’s league, says that 40 years ago, there was 120 women playing organized football. Now he says, there are nearly 2,000 women on 51 teams in the Independent Women’s Football League (IWFL).

For the women, though, it is a badge of honor to play.

One member of the national team, Jeanna Fisher who plays for Portland in the IWFL, says she discovered the league when she walked by a table promoting the local team at a civic fair. Another, Molly Goodwin, got into the sport after playing competitive Ultimate Frisbee and flag football in the Boston area. Still another, Mia Brickhouse, played softball at Villanova and used the sport as an outlet and a “distraction” while going through law school.

“I just figured, ‘Well, I’ve done well at the family barbeques playing football. Let me just give it a try’,” Brickhouse said.

And try she did as Brickhouse has now played the sport for nine years and is eagerly looking forward to representing the United States in the tournament.

Women’s football is an untapped market for the IFAF and even the NFL. According to Nielsen Media Research, 41.9 million women aged 18 and over watched the most recent Super Bowl. By comparison, the 82nd Academy Awards, often considered prime advertising time to target women, attracted 41.7 million total viewers this year. It goes deeper, a 2004 Harris Poll had 30% of all women listing the NFL as their favorite sport, more than double baseball which came in a distant second. College football was third, a favorite of 10% of the women polled.

The growth of football at the international level and especially for women will follow the successful blueprint that has turned soccer into a global sport and has brought baseball, basketball and even hockey into the worldwide sporting discussion. International competition and subsequent exposure is key to the marketing, branding and the growth of gridiron football internationally.

“The popularity of our sport around the world continues to grow — that includes interest in playing the game at all levels. The women’s world championship is a great example of that interest,” said Chris Parson, vice president of NFL international. “The tournament is sure to be an outstanding event for the players, coaches and fans that will be remembered for years to come.”

And what the NFL might remember most is the ringing of the cash register.

“It could be that springboard that really puts us on the map, so in that regard I think we could really springboard into a full professional league with national exposure from this tournament,” said Goodwin, who plays on the IWFL’s Boston Militia.

Many women on the team say that there is usually some surprise when they tell people that they play in the IWFL or will represent the United States on a national team in international competition. Most people they talk to assume that they play in the much ballyhooed Lingerie Football League.

The response, says Fisher, is that they wear pads and helmets, not push-ups and heels.

“Um, ‘No, we are absolutely not the lingerie league.’ And then I’ll get questions like, ‘Do you guys actually wear pads? Do you actually hit each other?’ – like we’re not capable of doing something that the boys do,” Fisher said. “But we do it all.”

The women’s game closely mirrors the NFL or big-time college football.

Konecki runs the spread offense on his Chicago team, which he says utilizes the speed and dynamics of his offense. He sees the tournament as a chance for the women to show that they can play football at a high level and that while you can’t compare the skill-level between men and women on the field, he notes that many of his players were top college athletes in other sports, making this an athletic group of women.

Brickhouse said that her mother is warming up to the sport, noting that she was pleased to see that her daughter was the “one delivering the hits and not receiving them.” Her father, though, has gotten behind her daughter’s football accomplishments. Brickhouse’s brother was more comfortable with computers and technology, she says, so this is an opportunity for her dad to root for a child of his on the football field.

“Dad is 100% on board. He’s at every game he can be at, he’s on the internet, he’s the first one that calls me after the game. For him, it makes no difference whether I’m a girl or not,” Brickhouse said. “For him, he’s just proud of me and all the accomplishments.”

And for the women of the United States team at the world championships this week, they hope to convert a few more Mr. Brickhouses to their side over the next week.

Kristian R. Dyer covers the NFL for FOXSports.com and Scout.com as a publisher of GreenAndWhiteReport.com, covering all things about the New York Jets. He can be reached for comment at KristianRDyer@yahoo.com and followed at twitter.com/kdyer1012