{"id":1382,"date":"2020-03-05T08:51:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T13:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2020-03-05T08:54:09","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T13:54:09","slug":"the-x-league-an-illegal-hold-on-womens-sporting-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/2020\/03\/05\/the-x-league-an-illegal-hold-on-womens-sporting-possibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"The X League: An Illegal Hold on Women\u2019s Sporting Possibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Chris Phutully.<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The X League is an arena women\u2019s tackle football league where women pay<\/a> to play full contact, scantily clad, televised, football. Arena football has slightly different rules than traditional football with no field goals or extra-point kicks. Several arena football leagues exist, but the X League has one unique quality. In the X League, players wear bikini-like \u201cperformance apparel\u201d and modified equipment, such as hockey helmets, less leg padding, and modified shoulder pads that do not cover their chests <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The X League started as a pay-per-view alternative to the Super Bowl Halftime show in 2004. It became the Lingerie Football League in 2009, then rebranded again to the Legends Football League (LFL) in 2013 with hopes of gaining credibility as a sport rather than being seen as a \u201cgimmick<\/a>.\u201d In December 2019, the league went through another rebranding to become the \u201cExtreme Football League\u201d (or X League) and claims that this change will \u201center a new era of women\u2019s empowerment<\/a>\u201d by allowing players and coaches the possibility of receiving team ownership shares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the league aims to capitalize on the idea that \u201csex sells<\/a>.\u201d The core audience<\/a> of this league has predominantly been young men, but recently audiences of women and children<\/a> are growing. As a result of this model, the league has experienced some success. Approximately 4,000 fans attend each league game. The X League\u2019s Facebook<\/a> page has over 1 million likes, whereas the more traditional Women\u2019s Football Alliance<\/a> has just over 20 thousand likes. The media is also essential to the X League\u2019s success, as weekly games air on FUSE<\/a>, making the X League the only women\u2019s football league with a mainstream television deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tackle football is traditionally seen as a masculine sport, but women\u2019s involvement is growing with teams forming across the world. However, youth teams for girls\u2019 are forming at a slower pace. Therefore, many players only begin tackle football in adulthood after playing other sports in their youth. The X League is a good case study to analyze high-level women\u2019s sport structures broadly because women have the choice to play more traditional versions of tackle football or sports they have specialized in; yet, some choose to play X League football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what is it like to be a player in the X League? To answer this question, I gathered stories from 10 former players using blogs, podcast interviews, and news articles. The sentiments shared by former players can be interpreted as what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu referred to as symbolic violence.<\/a> Symbolic violence is about structural levels of control that people face, but often accept, because the structures seem natural and unchangeable. It is harmful because people learn to accept and reproduce systems of oppression. Symbolic violence is expressed in three categories<\/a>: denial of resources, inferior treatment, and a limitation of aspirations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Nathan Rupert<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the players\u2019 statements, I found evidence for all three categories, starting with resource denial through a lack of pay. A common concern for high-level women\u2019s sport, players are commonly paid very little (if anything) for their labor. In the LFL\u2019s first season, players were paid a small amount linked to ticket sales and wins. Now, they pay $45 in league fees and $150<\/a> in equipment fees each season. In an attempt to advocate for better wages, in 2014 one of two lawsuits claimed that the demands put on players by the league resemble an employee-employer relationship. The 2014 case resulted in a default judgment because the X League was uncooperative. Additionally, another former player recalls having a paid contract position as the team\u2019s media manager, yet received no financial compensation. Therefore, players are actively denied income, which impacts both their livelihood and ability to train and compete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second indicator is inferior treatment, perhaps exemplified by one player\u2019s statement: \u201cWould you rather go pay more money to play in a league that respects you as an athlete? That treats you as an athlete. That looks at you not as a sex symbol…\u201d<\/a> This quote focuses on the issue of sexualization, which Sang and Powell argue is symbolic violence, because it undermines players as athletes. Football is a largely male-dominated place, where toxic masculinity is normalized, and where women\u2019s involvement is positioned as abnormal. Therefore, sexualizing women playing high-level football serves to reproduce exclusion by positioning women as sexualized subjects rather than athletes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the third indicator of symbolic violence is a limitation of aspirations. In the X League, this is a process where high aspirations are sold but then limited as players see a trend of false promises. One former player offers a difficult reflection about the league: \u201cyou\u2019re kind of like in an abusive relationship where your boyfriend constantly tells you that he\u2019ll put a ring on your finger… But, he\u2019ll constantly find excuses for you to not be loyal enough<\/a>.\u201d Comparing the league to emotional abuse from a partner highlights a similar structure of gendered violence. Moreover, regarding the promises made during the recent rebranding, a former player said, \u201cWe are a part of that. Of empty promises… So now that you\u2019re not even changing the image, why would anything else change?\u201d In other words, this player sees the promise of empowerment as unrealistic. The players\u2019 aspirations are actively limited because of the league\u2019s broken promises.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, why do players still pay to play in this league? Some insight is provided by Bourdieu\u2019s concept of misrecognition<\/a>, which argues that symbolic violence is accepted because it is framed as natural and unchangeable, so it often goes unchallenged. Former players\u2019 statements of \u201csport at any cost\u201d represent symbolic violence as a necessary sacrifice to play women\u2019s high-level football. Several former players explain, \u201cIt\u2019s the only professional women\u2019s league that gets attention…sometimes when you\u2019re a female athlete you have to suck it up. You have to do whatever it takes to get people to your games,\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s hard cause there are a lot of girls that know that they wanna leave, but they don\u2019t know where else they could go.\u201d These statements illustrate a feeling of despair where players recognize facing symbolic violence but see it as necessary in order to play football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, the X League\u2019s structure perpetuates symbolic violence that is all too familiar in high-level women\u2019s sport. The X League\u2019s existence is largely contingent on players feeling trapped in women\u2019s sport systems that are plagued with low media coverage, little to no pay, small fan bases, and inferior conditions. These factors force players to accept systems of symbolic violence similar to what can be seen in the X League. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kasie Murphy (@KasieMurphy61<\/a>) is an MA student in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen\u2019s University in Kingston, Canada. Her research interests include gender, embodiment, collision sport, and women\u2019s sporting experiences. As a former player herself, much of her current work looks at women and girls\u2019 experiences playing tackle football<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The X League is an arena women\u2019s tackle football league where women pay to play full contact, scantily clad, televised, football. Arena football has slightly different rules than traditional football with no field goals or extra-point kicks. Several arena football leagues exist, but the X League has one unique quality. In the X League, players […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2075,"featured_media":1384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[95533],"tags":[2721,477,33639,1976,1550,126593],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-american","tag-femininity","tag-football","tag-gender-norms","tag-masculinity","tag-symbolic-violence","tag-x-league"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/files\/2020\/03\/11888861633_76f6e3eca7_b.jpg?fit=885%2C1023&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8iFlL-mi","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2075"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1392,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions\/1392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}